Light Yet To Be Found
by andeemae
Summary: Winning the 50th Quarter Quell is anything but a victory for Haymitch. When the sister of his long dead ally worms her way into his life he starts to see the light he'd lost with his family, but life can never be that simple for a Victor.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

**Light Yet To Be Found**

AN: Many thanks to FortuneFaded2012 for beta'ing.

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Haymitch stares at the pair of cold stones in front of him. He can still remember the freshly piled dirt, now flat and covered with thin, patchy grass and more than a few weeds. He takes a long swig from his bottle and drops it.

His mother hated drinking.

She'd told him once his father was a drinker. That he'd blamed his need for a crutch on never knowing his own father.

"That wasn't much of an excuse," she'd sighed rubbed her hands over her eyes. "Now he's dead and you boys won't know your father, but that's not an excuse to crawl in a bottle either."

He wonders if she'd think getting her and Graeme killed is enough of an excuse to get falling down drunk more nights than not. She hadn't thought getting Laurel killed was reason enough, but maybe three deaths of people he loved would make his mother realize that sometimes oblivion is the only way to cope.

A few more raindrops break free of the gray clouds overhead, splatter on the stones with his mother and brother's names on them, roll down the rough sides and smooth fronts, trailing lazily over the etching of their names.

If he could cry he would, but he's never been much for tears and the few he had are used up already. Not at the funerals. Not out in public where the Capitol could enjoy his misery, though he's positive they still have a front row seat to his suffering, but in his room, in his empty house. The house that he'd planned on letting the two people whose stone's he's standing over now share with him.

That's never going to happen though, and it's all because of him.

It's been five years since the funerals, since he buried his mother and brother, and only a little longer since he'd stood next to Laurel's parents and put her in the earth, but it feels like decades. He doesn't feel like a young Victor anymore, but a very old man.

This is certainly not the life of comfort and ease he'd been promised for winning the Hunger Games.

If he'd just listened to that damned woman when she came to him.

It had been just hours before his interview, before he was forced to watch the recap of his Games, watch the bloodbath, watch Maysilee die, watch himself be disemboweled, when she'd come into his room.

She was dark haired, ashen skinned, a little hazy to Haymitch's eyes as she walked in his room.

"Can I help you?" He'd asked. She wasn't garishly dressed or overly made up, so he quickly assumed she wasn't from the Capitol.

"No," she finally answered as she picked up his District token, a little thin silver chain his mother had pressed on him seconds before he was taken away. "But I think I might be able to help you."

"How's that?"

She smiled, handed him the chain. "Do you know who I am?"

Haymitch scowled at her. "A Victor."

It's the only thing she could be.

"But _who_ am I?"

She keeps smiling, even though it was perfectly apparent he had absolutely no idea who she was aside from a former Victor.

He didn't have time for more games. He had an appearance to make, and soon, so he smirked at her. "Nobody I need to know, sweetheart."

She didn't take his cool reception as a sign to leave. "You should want to know me. You're going to have to make a choice, and the sooner the better. If you listen to me, my option may just save you."

It had been a long time since he'd had a good laugh. This woman looked about as likely to save him as she was to get him killed with her cryptic words and vague demeanor.

"I'm serious, Haymitch," she tells him, her mouth downturned in annoyance at his dismissal of her statement. "You've made a lot of people upset with your little stunt with the force field. There'll be blood to pay, and that blood will be on your hands."

He snorted at her. "What're they going to do to me? Send me back in the arena?"

Years later that statement would haunt him, just like his waving off her offer of help would plague him, one just much sooner than the other.

"Just because you made it out alive doesn't mean the Game is over," she cautioned him. "We're all playing still, the question now is: what piece in the Game do you want to be?"

A few weeks later, Laurel was killed. A poisonous snake somehow found its way into her bedroom, and he regretted turning his back on the woman. He didn't try to make amends with her though, when he saw her in Three during his Victory Tour.

Her name, it turned out, was Wiress. She shot him a few questioning looks as he gave his canned speech to the drab mass of humanity that was District Three, but she didn't speak to him again, didn't ask if he'd decided what piece of the Game he wanted to play.

Then, at the end of his Tour, he met Shelly.

She was clearly a Victor from Four, and if her name hadn't given it away her looks certain would've. Tanned and slim and effortlessly graceful, she'd smiled with perfectly straight teeth, artificially white, and told him that his services were needed in suite thirteen.

"You'll find everything you need in the room," she told him, her smile never faltering.

"Everything I need?" He'd asked. Haymitch knew better than to take directions from a stranger, even a very attractive stranger.

Shelly simply chuckled. "To repay your debts, of course. Everything has a price."

Especially victory.

It hadn't surprise him, what was being asked of him. After Laurel's death he'd gone over Wiress' words, and Shelly finally confirmed what he had guessed about the other choice he was going to be offered.

It was the choice Delmond Seward, the useless lump that had, until Haymitch's victory, been Twelve's only occupant in the Victors' Village, had made. He hadn't said as much, but when Haymitch had foolishly mentioned Wiress' visit, the old man had paled, told Haymitch he should've listened to her.

"No one'll want you when they finish with you."

Haymitch had crossed his arms, rolled his eyes at Shelly in her fancy dress and painful looking shoes. "I paid my debts, princess. I gave them a show. If they want a private audience with me they'll have to send someone a little more persuasive than you."

She'd grinned, made a disapproving noise as she stood. "For your sake, I hope you change your mind before I get down this hall."

He hadn't, of course, and the moment he stepped off the train in his home district one of his friends, a boy he doesn't even see anymore, had come running to him, cold fear in his eyes.

There had been a fire, and Haymitch arrived just in time to see his childhood home, the one he'd been trying to convince his mother to move out of and come live with him, collapse in on itself in a burning mess. When they finally got the fire out, pulled his mother and Graeme's bodies out, Haymitch had lost the ability to speak. He almost put himself out of his misery. The only thing that stopped him were Wiress' words.

"_What piece in the Game do you want to be?"_

He told her the next year _exactly_ what piece he wanted to be, as they sat in the wake of their Tributes' deaths in a grimy bar at the center of Capitol.

"I want to help bring them down," he told her. "And the sooner the better."

Wiress and her friend, another Victor from Three, a twitchy man named Beetee, exchanged a look. Haymitch thought they might've changed their minds about helping him, or more likely, letting him help them. He hadn't exactly been his normally charming self the year before.

After several silent seconds, though, Wiress turned back to him.

"You'll have to use that patience of yours, young man." She took a deep breath. "This is a long game we're playing. Don't expect a quick Capitol-style ending. We don't have all _our_ pieces yet."

His part wasn't much, or at least didn't feel like much. He was clever, or so Wiress thought, and all he had to do was watch.

"It's like a game of chess," Beetee had explained, more than once. "We have to find the right moves and we have to make them with the right pieces at the right time or we'll lose more than we can afford."

"We need to cultivate a Tribute, a Volunteer. One that will inspire the Districts and pull at the empty hearts of the Capitol," Wiress told him. "But before we do that we have to practice our moves. Make sure we can sway the masses to our liking. Do you understand?"

It would've saved them a lot of time to be straightforward. They had devices to keep the Capitol from listening in on them, why they didn't just use the damned things and tell him and everyone else what the end of their long game was, Haymitch didn't know. Maybe they weren't as confident in their toys as they so often seemed.

Still, Haymitch understood, and he had nothing better to do than wait and watch. All he had was time it seemed.

So for five long years he's played his part, waited and watched, passed along notes, helped Wiress and Beetee and the other head cases in the 'Scouts', the Victors that lacked the physical draw to make the government money, but paid their debt with their minds, try to figure out what moves they wanted to make next, what strategy they wanted to test.

He's happy not to be a part of either of the groups. They're miserable, more than he is, even if _their_ misery is shared among them. Haymitch has the rather dubious gift of being both among and apart from the 'scouts' and the 'bought and sold' of the Victors.

Being alone has given him time to drink, time to let his anger simmer, time to plot.

Mostly, though, it's been drinking.

Not being in the haze of a drink meant having to think about how he could've saved his mother and brother. Laurel had been a hopeless case, she was the Capitol's jab at him for using the force field in a way they hadn't meant it to be used, but his mother and brother had been retaliation for what he'd refused to become.

Maybe if he'd listened to Wiress, let her help him as she'd claimed she could, he could've saved them. It burns him a little, that she might've been the one that determined that his best punishment was to take his family and Laurel from him, but he can't find it in himself to hate her. Wiress was playing her part, making the moves she needed to in order to keep her loved ones safe, and he couldn't hate her for that, not really.

He doesn't like her though. He accepts that she is what she is, a creature that's surviving to the best of its ability, like a wild animal that lashes out when provoked. She's neither his friend nor his enemy, just another part of the never-ending game he's trapped in.

Rubbing his hand down his face, he wipes away some of the flecks of rain that have come down on him. He'd known it had looked like rain when he stumbled out of his house, but he hadn't cared enough to grab the umbrella he'd stolen from the ditzy escort Thisba at the end of the last Games.

For the hundredth time he feels eyes on him and he groans.

It isn't bad enough getting gawked at during the Reaping, it's worse since Delmond went and froze to death looking for his damned dog last winter. Now Haymitch is the only Victor for the crowdto stare at while Thisba makes an ass out of herself on stage.

He tries to ignore whoever it is, shoves his hands in his pockets and locks his eyes on the stones, but he can still feel them.

Just when he's decided to leave, go home and try for the millionth time to find the good whisky he'd brought back from Capitol a few years prior, he feels a hand on his back.

He jumps, pulls his knife out. It wouldn't be the first time someone has tried to rob him since his Games.

Instead of finding some dumb as dirt miner or a kid, he finds a ghost.

She's older than she had been, there's no blood spurting from her neck, and her eyes aren't as clear, but there's no doubt who it is.

Maysilee Donner.

The apparition takes a step forward, smiles and offers him the shelter of its umbrella.

That's when he comes to his senses.

There's no such thing as ghosts, only dead girls with very much alive sisters.

Haymitch has never talked to Matilda, not before the Games and certainly not since. He has enough problems without looking at the face of his ill-fated ally.

Graeme had told him that during the Games Matilda and her father had stood with them, given him and their mother treats from their shop. Even after Maysilee's bloody death, they'd apparently continued to keep Graeme and Harriet Abernathy company and bring them gifts of chocolate.

Looking back, Haymitch thinks maybe Graeme had developed a bit of a crush on the sweet shop owner's daughter. He'd told his big brother every detail about the candies, told him about helping Matilda make glass candy and chocolate drops, and had begged Haymitch to go with him to the shop every day, right up until the fire ended his life.

She and her father had come to the funeral, given Haymitch a tin of beautiful fudge. He'd thrown it in the pile of garbage in his kitchen the moment he got home. If there was one thing he didn't deserve, it was a treat from a pretty girl.

He hadn't exactly avoided her since that day, they didn't run in the same circles, to say the least, but he hadn't sought her out. Maybe he should've thanked her for making his brother's last few months a little brighter, or sent out 'thank you' cards for the funeral and said it, but he honestly felt that maybe if his brother hadn't been so happy, right up until the end, losing him wouldn't have felt so bad.

When he doesn't make a move to get under her umbrella her smile fades into an uncertain expression. Her lip puckers and her pale eyebrows knit together.

"Hello," she says.

Haymitch grunts an acknowledgement. He doesn't want to talk to 'Mad Mati' Donner, not even to say a half-hearted thank you for keeping his brother happy.

Matilda tilts her head then turns and points behind her, to where she'd come from.

"I came to see May and my mother," she explains as her hand drifts down. Her pale hair floats around her head as she turns back to Haymitch. "Did you come to see your brother and mother?"

She's apparently forgotten about Laurel, most people do.

Matilda has always been a little strange, and from what he's heard her oddness has only increased since her sister's death. He's heard rumors that she's stayed in her room for days on end, complaining of terrible headaches. There's little sympathy for her. People suffer worse lives than she could ever imagine and they don't lock themselves away. It's actually a surprise to see her venturing away from her family's sweet shop.

He starts to tell her he came out to meet a lady friend and for her to leave before she becomes part of a party she won't like, but stops himself. He doubts she'd even get his joke.

"Yeah," he finally says, turning back from her and to the stones. He can't stop himself. "I really enjoy their company."

He hears a snort and glances back. Matilda has her hand over her mouth and her eyes are crinkled up.

Her hand drops and she smiles at him. "Me too."

Even though he hadn't expected her to catch his joke, he's pleased. He doesn't get much interaction outside of his transactions for liquor and the yearly Reaping.

Matilda offers him her umbrella again. "You should be wearing a hat."

His eyes flicker down to her feet to see whether she is wearing shoes. She was notorious during school for taking them off during recess and forgetting to put them back on. Sure enough, her pale bare feet are settled in the straggly grass.

"You should wear shoes."

She shrugs, takes her umbrella back.

For a minute they seem to be at an impasse. Haymitch wonders if he can walk off and Matilda will assume she'd imagined the whole meeting or if he has to excuse himself. Then she reaches in her bag and pulls out a tin.

"I made orange slice candies. Graeme liked them best." She opens the tin and tilts it to show Haymitch. "I remembered it was his birthday today and I made them for him."

Annoyance bubbles up in Haymitch's chest.

She's wasting perfectly good, if not entirely nutritious, food on someone that can't appreciate it.

Graeme had lived for thirteen years and she hadn't bothered to give him candy before her sister and Haymitch had been Reaped. If Maysilee hadn't been his ally, if they hadn't met up and made it to the final eight together, would Matilda have even spared him a second thought? Where were she and her father and their sickly sweet candies when Graeme was starving? When Haymitch had been forced to start pawning off his family's prized possessions just to survive after his father died?

Her sympathy and care are conditional, and that burns Haymitch through.

If her family had cared a little more then maybe Haymitch wouldn't have taken out so many Tesserae, wouldn't have been Reaped, wouldn't have become a Victor.

If her family had cared a little more when it counted then maybe her candy wouldn't be going to waste on a dead boy.

He's being unreasonable. He _knows_ none of his misery is Matilda Donner or her family's fault, but it's his baby brother's birthday and instead of scraping together enough to buy him a cookie to celebrate Haymitch is going to get falling down drunk in his cold, empty house and try to forget that he ever had a brother.

As she brushes past him he catches her elbow, snatches the tin from her and hurls it into the ground, getting a little too much satisfaction from the metallic bang it makes as the lid jars off and the candies spill out.

"He's dead," he snaps at her. "He's dead and it's stupid of you to leave candy for a dead boy."

Her little smile slips off. "Oh, I'm sorry."

She tosses her umbrella, drops down and starts gathering up the candies, but Haymitch kicks the tin and several of the candies out of her reach.

"They're ruined. There's no reason to pick up something that's ruined," he tells her as he glares down at her.

Matilda seems to shrink, falls back on her heels and crosses her arms over her stomach protectively. She nods to the ground.

There's no reason to keep picking at her, but he's furious at the world and she's just lucky enough to catch the explosion. "Don't even know how stupid you look, walking around without your shoes and taking candy out to the cemetery. You're still just 'Mad Mati', aren't you?"

Her face is still down, but she's swatting at it, brushing away tears. "Please don't call me that."

Haymitch remembers when they were younger a game the other kids had always played. 'Make Mati Cry'. The winner had always gotten a cookie from Kolach Mellark's parents' bakery, though he never looked particularly happy about being included, even if only tangentially. Haymitch had never played, his mother would've killed him for tormenting a girl like that, but he'd watched and now he was finally taking his turn.

"Just as bad as when you were little. Crying your eyes out when someone points out what a waste of space you are." He takes a breath, prepares for the final blow. "Only difference is, now you don't have your sister to protect you, tell you what a big bully I am. 'Cause she's dead too, 'Mad Mati'."

She pushes herself up and he can see her shaking. "Please don't call me t-that."

"But you _are_," he tells her coolly. "You're 'Mad Mati' and that's all you'll ever be. Do you think Graeme would've been your friend if it hadn't been for the Games? Not even a kid like him would've wanted to hang out with a nutcase like you. I bet that's why Valencia Burdock ran off to the Seam, she was sick of babysitting a lunatic."

The tears are pouring now, falling down her cheeks and dripping onto her blue blouse.

She doesn't say anything, just nods, turns, and runs.

For a few seconds Haymitch feels a dark kind of satisfaction. If she doesn't feel every bit as awful as he does now she doesn't know how to feel. That feeling evaporates, like the rain will once the sun shows its face, when he glances back at the stones.

A voice, that sounds suspiciously like his mother, calls him a genuine bastard. If he had a conscience, which he's positive he doesn't, he'd swear it was slapping him. It tells him he had better go and apologize to that poor girl or there'll be hell to pay in the morning.

Instead of going after her, Haymitch picks up his bottle, takes the last swig and tosses it into the distance. His feet carry him home and the reasonable part of his mind, the part that isn't telling him to chase after 'Mad Mati' Donner, helps him locate that whiskey.

#######

When he wakes, blinking painfully into the blazing sun, he has a pounding headache.

He's on the floor of the living room, still in his clothes, reeking of alcohol. If his mother had been alive and not disappointed with him yesterday, she would've been today.

Stumbling up the stairs, losing his left shoe in the process, he makes it to the bathroom.

When he finally gets the shower on, falls into the oversized tub with most of his clothes still on, he wakes a little more.

All the things he'd been drinking to forget, his mother, his brother, Laurel, come back to him. His head pounds and he wonders if he can get himself in a well enough state to get to Ripper and rid himself of his pesky memories.

After an hour and a magnificent struggle with his right shoe and his belt buckle, he finally gets as clean as he's likely to get. He crawls out of the tub, leaves the mess of filthy clothes in the pile he's been creating over the past few years, and digs something wearable out of his closet.

When he finally finds his mirror, hidden under several coats, he sees he's mostly presentable.

He makes it downstairs; his feet have started cooperating finally, and he walks with surprising steadiness into the kitchen.

Digging through the cabinet, he doesn't find anything edible. He moves on to the icebox, finds a handful of strawberries he'd picked up during his last liquor run, and snatches them up.

As he chews the last berry the sun catches on something in the corner. He almost groans when he realizes what it is.

His head, which had started to feel marginally better, begins to pound again when he marches over and picks up the tin. The fudge is rock hard, bangs roughly against the tin container when he shakes it.

That voice that had harassed him the day before begins nagging at him again.

A sharp pain hits his chest. There had been no reason to taunt Matilda. She was odd, that was true, but that was just one more reason why he shouldn't have tormented her. She had only been trying to be nice, in her own weird way.

He knows what he needs to do, and he absolutely hates it.

#######

Before heading to the sweet shop Haymitch goes to the cemetery and picks up Matilda's other tin.

It's bent, some mud had washed into it during the course of the little shower, and he can't fit the lid back on, but at least it's something for him to hand back. Even if she slaps him, she can't say he didn't come by. She'll have the tin as proof.

The bell over the door to the sweet shop jingles happily when Haymitch pushes it open and lets it drop closed behind him.

Matilda's father, his name escapes Haymitch at the moment, pokes his head out from the back, squints through his crooked glasses to see who has come in. He blinks, reaches up with a white powder covered finger and pushes his glasses up his nose, leaving a faint trail of powdered sugar up the bridge.

"Hello," he finally says. It's even but not angry. A smile cracks his face. "I always wondered if you would come and see us."

He comes around the corner of his candy display and holds out his hand.

Confused but happy he isn't going to throw him out before he can make amends with Matilda, Haymitch takes his hand. When he pulls back he's sticky.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Herschel, _that's_his name, Haymitch remembers when he glances at the little name badge on his chest, says.

He pulls a rag from his back pocket and rubs the half wet powder from Haymitch's hand.

"I've wanted to talk to you for years, but I wasn't sure if you would want to," Herschel tells him as he finishes wiping the powder off. Haymitch instantly feels his stomach drop. "I wanted to thank you for being so kind to Maysilee."

It's unnecessary praise. He hadn't teamed up with her for her benefit, and given the choice he wouldn't have allied with anyone. It's messy and mentally exhausting. Pragmatism had won out though, and now he's receiving gratitude he doesn't deserve.

He swallows down a bit of bile that's risen in his throat. After how he treated Matilda yesterday he definitely doesn't deserve any appreciation.

"I-It was the least I could do." The _very_ least.

Herschel's smile brightens. "No, it wasn't. It was more than most would do."

He looks like he might cry, which makes Haymitch more than a little uncomfortable, so he clears his throat. "Uh, I just came by to see Matilda."

The old man nods and gestures to the back, behind the counter and through an open doorway.

"She's making stained glass candies." He takes Haymitch by the hand again, gives it a paternal kind of pat. "She'll be so happy to meet you, officially I mean. I know you went to school together. She's wanted to thank you and tell you how wonderful your mother and brother were to us during the Games for ages and tell you how terribly we felt when we heard they'd been killed."

A knot forms in Haymitch's stomach with each word out of Herschel's mouth.

"Your brother was such a sweet boy. Kept telling us how much you would like fudge if you ever got a chance to eat any. And your mother was a lovely woman. Told us every day that you were a gentleman. That you would take care of May until the end." He takes off his glasses and rubs a smudge off with his shirt. "And she was right. You held her hand right to the end."

It's painfully apparent Matilda hasn't told her father what a complete bastard he is. If she had he wouldn't be heaping praise on him. Even if he had held his dying daughters hand.

Herschel leads Haymitch around the counter, gestures for him to keep following him until they turn past a large contraption that looks to be pulling taffy.

Matilda is at a little rough table, breaking apart a sheet of red candy into large chunks. Her hair is pulled back, a few strands are floating around under the net she has over her head and her face is smeared with something blue. She stops when she hears her father come in, looks up and knits her eyebrows together.

"Look who has finally come to visit us, Mati." He gestures to Haymitch.

When she doesn't respond Haymitch expects her father to get suspicious, maybe ask her what's wrong, but instead he just sighs.

"Mati-dear, this is Haymitch. You remember, don't you?"

She nods, drops her eyes, takes her hands off the candy and begins wiping them on her little apron. "I remember."

Herschel seems to be used to prompting her, patiently prodding words out of her, because he gives her an encouraging smile. "He came by to see you."

Her eyes stay down and her mouth settles into a firm frown. "Why?"

Her father chuckles. "I have no idea."

The bell over the door rings, just as it had when Haymitch had entered and Herschel smiles at the prospect of a customer.

"I'll let him tell you, dear," he tells his increasingly anxious looking daughter as he shuffles around the source of her worry to get to the front of the store.

Once he's vanished back around the taffy machine, the two are left in suffocating silence.

Matilda picks up a wooden spoon, holds it with both her delicate looking hands like some kind of pathetic sword. "Did you come to play another round of 'Make Mati Cry'?"

It would've hurt less if she'd slapped him. That irritable voice in the back of his head, that sounds a little like his brother now, calls him an asshole and he's inclined to agree.

"No." Haymitch swallows his pride. Unsurprisingly, it tastes like orange slice candy. "I came to apologize."

Her expression is still guarded, but she lets the wooden spoon drop a few inches. She'd stab him in the stomach instead of the chest now, which in his case might not work. There's no telling what those Capitol doctors used on him when they stuffed his guts back in.

"I was feeling shitty and I just took it out on you." She's like a human equivalent of a puppy. Perfectly sweet and easy to kick, but even if they deserved it you still feel like a bastard for doing it the moment they turn their eyes up at you.

"Look, it was real nice of you to remember Graeme's birthday. I'm sure he would've liked the candy, and I appreciate the gesture." Even if he still thinks it's a little stupid. "I shouldn't've thrown your tin and I shouldn't've made you cry. I'm sorry."

He reaches into his coat and pulls out the tin. It's still scuffed up, despite his best efforts to rub the dirt off with his sleeve, and there's nothing he can do about the bending, but it's something.

Matilda lets the spoon drop down, but keeps it in her left hand as she chews her lip and considers Haymitch for a moment. She slowly walks around the table and reaches out, takes the tin from his hand and examines it.

He expects her to throw it at his head, that's what Laurel would've done, and honestly it's what he deserves.

He doesn't expect her to lean, practically fall in, and hug him.

It's been a long time since he's hugged anyone. He's had a few strange hook-ups in the Capitol, after he's failed another pair of idiot kids again, but he doesn't remember much of those and he's fairly certain they didn't involve hugging. At least not hugging like this.

The women in the Capitol are artificial, plastic and harsh, stink with perfume and smoke. Matilda is soft, she smells like the shop around him, sweet and powdery.

For a minute he just lets her hold him, stands stiffly with her cheek pressed into his chest. Then he relaxes, gives her an awkward pat on the shoulder.

It goes on a shade too long, and Haymitch starts fidgeting. He isn't sure what he's supposed to say if Herschel comes in and finds a guy he really just met today being hugged by his only remaining daughter.

"You can let go anytime now, sweetheart."

She slowly unwraps her arms, and Haymitch feels a ping of disappointment at the loss of contact.

"I'm sorry I upset you too," she says. It's so soft he almost misses it.

He makes a gruff noise and she looks up.

"You didn't upset me. I was already in a bad mood."

Her head tilts, a few wisps of her hair float around her head under the netting protecting it. "I was just an easy mark."

She doesn't sound surprised or even upset. It's a fact to her. There's no telling how many times she's been 'an easy mark' for people's frustration. Haymitch is furious at himself for adding his name to that list.

"It's okay." She shrugs, gives him a smile. "I'm used to it."

Haymitch grinds his teeth. He's been on the receiving end of people's irritation for the past few years for his failure to bring home any of the Tributes in anything but a pine box, and he still isn't used to it. Not entirely. The fact that dainty little Matilda is so easy to forgive him is a little disconcerting. He certainly wouldn't, and it makes him wonders if anyone who'd used her as their emotional punching bag had ever apologized.

Uncertain what to say to that, Haymitch nods, gives her another pat on the back and turns to leave.

"Haymitch?"

Against his better judgment, he turns back, forces himself not to make an agonizing face. She's made him feel too much, or at least feel something that isn't self-pity and self-loathing, and he's eager to get a drink and rid himself of those unwelcome emotions.

"Can-Would you mind if I came to visit you?" She's finally put her wooden spoon down, has both her hands clasped in front of her.

He doesn't know why she would want to go out to his filthy, misery laced house, but he also doubts she'll actually come, so he shrugs. "Whatever makes you happy, 'Tilda."

Her smile could light an entire district and Haymitch can't help but grin back at her.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

**Light Yet To Be Found, pt 2**

When Haymitch wakes a few days later he has his worst headache ever, not just in his head, but tapping every few minutes on the outside.

It takes him longer to realize than it should've to notice the irritating 'tap, tap, tap' isn't on his head but on his house.

Using every swear in his vocabulary, he rolls out of his bed and nearly breaks his neck when his foot lands on one of his discarded bottles. He lets out another round of swears, first at the bottle, then at whoever is at the door and interrupting his beauty sleep.

Throwing out a last few curses, he pulls his knife out and flings the door open.

"What?"

He expects kids. They've let up the past couple of years, but they still come to his door sometimes and beg for money or food, neither of which he has on hand. It was one of the few bits of useful wisdom old Delmond Seward had passed on to Haymitch when he'd won his Games.

"Don't keep money in the house. They're gonna break in looking for cash, probably a couple of times, but if you don't have any they'll stop," he'd told Haymitch as he'd let him pick out which of the dozen or so empty houses he would be spending the rest of his miserable life in.

Just as old Delmond had predicted, Haymitch had a couple of break-ins, chased a few idiots down and threatened to gut them, but after those incidents he was left alone.

The food he simply didn't have, other than some random scraps in the icebox. He ate at the Hob, when he went on his liquor run. There was just no reason to keep more food in the house.

There are no kids though, no dirty faces looking up at him or coal covered hands reaching up to him for handouts, but a pair of hazy blue eyes and delicate hands grasping at yet another tin, no doubt containing some kind of sweet.

Matilda tilts her head and blinks at the knife, still pointed just below her eye line. She doesn't appear bothered by it though, just pays it a few seconds of attention before letting her eyes float past it and up to Haymitch.

"You said I could come for a visit."

For a minute he just stares at her, mouth slightly open, slowly processing what she's said.

He vaguely remembers telling her she could come, but he'd never dreamed she would venture all the way out to the Victors' Village to hold him to it. Matilda isn't exactly someone who wanders all over the District, and that's probably for the best. Without someone to guide her he's almost positive she'd end up somewhere she didn't belong. He can only imagine what would happen to someone as pretty and as easily flustered as Matilda if she ended up in the dark back alleys of the Seam.

She stares, glances around his head to the room behind him. The open door seems to be an invitation for her and she sidesteps him, brushes past him and into his dark, dirty kitchen.

It's such a shock, not only seeing her there but also having her walk right into his house, that Haymitch doesn't move, doesn't turn, just stays staring at the air on his porch Matilda had so recently vacated.

He comes to his senses, spins on his heels and finds her examining the interior of the kitchen.

"You should clean," she tells him as she eyes the ever growing pile of garbage in the corner of the room.

"I wasn't expecting company," he tells her. It's the truth. He's never expecting company. "Normally the place is spotless."

A little smile forms on her lips and she nods at him, lets her foggy gaze travel around the room. "I imagine it is."

Haymitch comes in, kicks the door behind him closed before he remembers his blinds are shut and the room only has the most minimal of daylight fighting its way in. They haven't been opened in five years, not since his mother died.

Quickly, he flips on the light. The lone, naked bulb over his kitchen table blazes to life. He'd broken the elaborate cover that had protected it after Laurel died. It had scared Graeme and his mother had given Haymitch an almost physically pained look before packing up her youngest son and taking him back to their home in the Seam.

That was the night he'd realized his own mother didn't see him as her little boy anymore. Haymitch was a wild animal, like Wiress and all the other Victors, and his mother knew it. That was why she hadn't wanted to move herself and Graeme in with him. He still wonders if maybe he hadn't been so volatile they might've moved in with him and that maybe they would still be alive. The Capitol wouldn't burn one of its precious Victors' houses, but then, he supposes they would've just killed them, taken their revenge another way.

He shakes off the memory.

The lone bulb bathes the room in yellow light, castes the corners in odd shadows. Matilda comes off a little more colorful though. It makes the yellow of her dress a little more vibrant, her hair more golden, and her eyes darker, glittering.

She holds out her tin to him.

"You're supposed to bring a gift when you visit someone," she tells him. "It's some of the glass candy I was making."

Reaching out, he takes it from her, opens the lid and finds several chunks of hard, red candy.

"It's strawberry," she says, taking a step toward him. "Graeme told me you liked strawberries best."

The mention of his brother makes the annoying voice in his head pipe up. It tells him to be nice to Matilda or suffer the consequences.

"Thanks," he grunts as he takes the tin and carefully places it on the counter.

Matilda takes a few steps deeper into the house while his back is turned, cranes her neck through the opening leading into the living room. She falls back on her heels, turns back to Haymitch with her dully glowing eyes.

"You have cobwebs." She points through the opening, up to the ceiling on the other side.

He's aware of that. He doesn't _care_, but he is aware. Much like the mounting piles of garbage and the neverending mountains of clothing he's building in most of the rooms of the house, he feels they add to the ambiance.

"I like the spiders," he tells her. Which is also true. Those spiders are about the only creatures he hasn't decided are a complete waste of time. They don't judge him or ask for things, and they catch the flies. It's a kind of symbiotic relationship.

She nods, as though she might understand, then takes a few steps, glides out of the kitchen and into the living room.

Not really understanding what she's doing, and more than a little concerned that she might trip over something, Haymitch follows after her.

Her head is tilted up, examining the graceful vaulted ceiling.

Haymitch had picked the house because of it. He'd thought Laurel would like it, when she moved in, along with his mother and brother. After years of living with low slung homes, tiny cramped rooms, he'd thought the magnificent living room would've been nothing short of a dream.

She hadn't liked it though.

"It's too…much," she'd told him, looking a little overwhelmed at the apparent opulence of his new home.

He'd gotten mad at her, something he'll never forgive himself for her, and told her to just get out if she didn't like it. She had, slammed the door behind her and stomped off into the night.

They'd made up a few hours later, that's just how they'd been. Sometimes he thought they'd fought just to make up, because they enjoyed the fury of it, the heat and the sweat.

Matilda seems to like the arch of the ceiling, makes a slow circle on her toes as she smiles up at the wires sticking out from the center.

She stops and points up at the bare wires. "Someone's taken your light."

They had. During one of the Games, maybe two or three years ago, he'd forgotten to set the blasted alarm. Some opportunistic bastard had taken his lapse for all it was worth, broken in and taken what had appeared to be the most expensive and easily movable object in the house.

Haymitch had never turned it in to the authorities. He wasn't about to watch some poor bastard be beaten to death over a stupid chandelier.

"Yeah," he grunts. He scratches at the several days worth of stubble growing on his cheek.

"It's very beautiful," she sighs, running her pale hands over the back of the dusty couch. Her now dark eyes dance over the mantle to the fireplace. "Do you make popcorn in your fire?"

He has no idea what popcorn is, so he shakes his head.

A soft little smile turns up her lips. "I'll bring you some. I can help you clean and then we can pop it."

"I'd rather not," he mumbles, runs his hand over his tired eyes. He glances up at the enormous clock setting by the front door. It's hideous, chimes every hour on the hour. A 'gift' from the Capitol to remind him of each painful hour he's trapped in the beautiful tomb they've bestowed upon him.

He's a little stunned to see it's past six in the evening. Not that it matters to him. He has nothing but time on his hands. Sometimes he stays awake for days, other times he sleeps for just as long. This had been one of his sleeping days apparently.

Matilda must've come after the shop closed.

The sun is probably dying outside, dropping off the edge of the earth to sleep. It'll be dark soon and Matilda will have to walk home in it.

He's tempted to make her. It might discourage her from coming out again, _ever_possibly. Unfortunately, he remembers what Herschel had said just the other day, about his mother telling him that Haymitch was a gentleman and would look after Maysilee until the end. As much as he would like to teach Matilda a lesson about visiting, he can't.

Gesturing to the clock, he coughs.

"Uh, Matilda, it's kind of late."

She squints at the clock, tilts her head slightly. "It's only six."

"It's six fifteen and it's October," he points out. "Sunset is coming up."

Her lips press together in thought, then form a small 'o' when she works his words over in her head. She glances at the tightly closed windows and sighs. "I suppose you're right."

Hating himself for giving in to ghosts and old men, Haymitch manages to grumble out, "I can walk you home."

Matilda turns, her eyes grazing over the dusty and wasting entrails of his living room, until she's facing him again. Her soft features lift in another smile, bright, like the one she'd graced him with the other day when he'd told her she could visit.

He instantly knows he's made a horrible mistake.

#######

Matilda holds onto his arm the entire walk back to the edge of town. Just one of an increasing list of things he'd had to do for her just to get her out of his house.

First he'd almost had to put her in a pair of his boots. She'd claimed to have come with shoes, but her feet were completely bare. It had taken the better part of an hour to find the stupid things, which she'd kicked off on his porch. When he opened the door and tugged her out, he'd found the air much cooler. Her dress was pretty, but thin and fluttery, a summer sundress, not even remotely appropriate for a cool fall night. Cursing her and her lack of forethought, he'd stomped up the stairs, dug through the pile of clothes he'd been given during the last Games and found the hideous coat his stylist had forced on him. There's lipstick on the collar and he'd spilled something on it, probably expensive liquor, but otherwise it's in fair condition.

"Wear this," he'd thrust it at her, almost hitting her in the face with the sleeve.

She'd taken it, wrinkled her nose as she'd sniffed it. "Smells like smoke."

He shot her an agitated look. "Because I smoked in it."

"What did you smoke?"

If he knew he'd have gotten more. His memory of that night and for several days after is a fog, he'd blacked out. It was a welcome relief from the nightmares and guilt.

"Nothing you need to know about," he tells her gruffly, gesturing for her to put the coat on.

She does, slowly, then wraps one of her dainty arms around his and gives him a tug off the porch.

They're almost halfway there now. He can smell Mellark's Bakery, warm bread a rolls that used to make his stomach ache with hunger.

Kolach runs the place now. Haymitch had heard he'd married the banker's witch of a daughter, Eugenia, and had a brat now. Poor sap.

Matilda keeps pressing closer to his side, leaching off his warmth, despite the fact that he stiffens each time she does. She either doesn't notice or doesn't care.

When they finally reach the edge of the town he pulls her chilly little fingers from his elbow and takes a step back. He feels a bit like he's dumping an animal, and almost waves his hands at her and yells 'git' to shoo her off.

She stares at him for a few seconds, glows a pale white and silver under the half shadowed moon, then smiles. "Thank you."

He hadn't noticed, but she'd taken his hand back, has it pressed between her cold hands. She gives it a squeeze before she runs off, down the poorly lit road toward her family's shop.

#######

Haymitch drops off to sleep after downing the last of the expensive whiskey he'd finally managed to find.

He doesn't expect to wake until the next afternoon, and that suits him fine. Nothing for him to do anyway.

What he doesn't expect is to be woken at some unholy hour by vandals. He'd thought about being rob, trudged up all those stupid memories, when Matilda had come over, and that had drawn out some idiot. They'd started a fire too, by the smell of it.

His senses liven and he pulls his knife from under his pillow, crawls out of bed, and, carefully and quietly, opens the door. Crouching, he softly pads down the hall to the stairs. He immediately straightens when his living room comes into view.

It's bright, someone has opened the shades, not all the way, but enough that sunlight is spilling in. He can see dust floating in the air.

The bottle and filth that normally litter the floor are gone, swept up and taken away. All the dust, normally sticky thick on every surface, has been wiped, or more likely scrubbed, away. The only things left recognizable from the night before are the spider webs in the corners.

Perplexed by the country's strangest robbers, Haymitch quietly makes his way down the stairs, through the newly cleaned living room, and into the kitchen.

He'd apparently forgotten the alarm again.

Matilda is at the sink, scrubbing one of the many filthy pots he'd left on the floor ages ago. She's elbow deep in suds when she feels his eyes on her, turns with a bright smile at him.

"Good morning, Haymitch."

Her eyes widen slightly and her cheeks tinge pink before she jerks her head back to the sink. She continues to scrub at the pot.

Haymitch stares at her for a few seconds. It isn't until he stuffs his knife in the waistband of his pants that he realizes why she's blushing. He's only half-dressed, and not even the interesting half is showing.

Since she's the one breaking into his house she deserves to be a little embarrassed, so instead of going back upstairs to find a shirt, he walks to the sink, leans against the counter and stares at her.

"What are you doing in my house, Matilda?"

She keeps her eyes trained on the bubbles in the sink, doesn't even so much as glance over at him, when she speaks.

"You-you said-I mean-I told you I'd bring popcorn and help you clean, and you said you'd rather not." She chews her lip. "I thought you meant you'd rather not help clean and make the popcorn, so I came early to get it done before you got up." Her wide blue eyes slowly float up to his, her cheeks increasingly pink as they quickly glide over his bare upper body. "I got it wrong didn't I? You didn't want to make popcorn or clean with _me_."

If he had a heart he'd say she just stabbed it dead center. Her body seems to droop at the realization that she so badly misinterpreted him.

"I'm sorry." She pulls her hands from the soapy water, begins furiously wiping them on the tea towel. "I'm sorry. I always do this. I should've asked-"

She knocks a freshly cleaned bowl to the ground, shattering it into a million shards on the spotless tile floor. Tears spring to her eyes and she starts swatting them away, which only seems to make more fall, and harder.

"I'm s-sorry," she begins blubbering.

Her feet are bare again, Haymitch spots her shoes, neatly placed on a mat by his backdoor, and she almost steps in the broken glass as she tries to get to the broom on the other side of the room. The only thing that stops her is Haymitch catching her by the waist.

"Watch out!"

Matilda freezes against him, whether because he's got her pressed against his skin or because his shouting had frightened her, he doesn't know.

Taking a deep breath, he lowers his tone.

"I'm gonna let you go, but watch your feet, okay?" He doesn't need her bloody footprints trailed all over his kitchen or to have to carry her back to her father.

She nods and he lets her go. Her feet shuffle back, away from the glass and she takes the long way around to the broom.

He watches her, still sniffling and rubbing at her face, as she sweeps up the bowl.

"I'm sorry," she whispers again. "I'll go."

As he watches her drooping shoulders and hears her sloppy, wet sniffles, his non-existent conscience jabs him in the stomach.

"Matilda, uh, you didn't get it wrong." He's such a liar. "I just, you know, drink and I forgot."

Red-rimmed eyes slowly rise, meet his hopefully. "Really?"

Her lip is puckered and he wants more than anything to tell her that he's lying. That he just can't handle crying and can she please leave.

He doesn't though.

"Yeah." He glances over his shoulder, to the living room. "You did a nice job of it, sweetheart."

"You think?" She smiles. "I still feel like something is missing…"

Much as he'd like to tell her what's missing is mountains of filth he doesn't. He just picks up a towel and gestures to the sink. "We'll figure it out later. Let's just finish those dishes."

#######

Matilda force feeds him popcorn. She'd been afraid to use the fireplace. It isn't like her and her father's back at the shop, so she'd fired up his stove. It's never been used to his knowledge, and she apparently didn't know how to use it.

"I think it burnt a little," she tells him.

It had, and more than a little. He almost gags on it, but his mother's cooking was still worse.

She spends the afternoon working her way through his hallway and then into the bedrooms, tossing the molded and horrible smelling piles of clothing into trash bags. There's no point in trying to clean most of them, and he's always enjoyed driving the tailor in Town nuts.

Her hair gets progressively wilder, floating around her head in a pale cloud. She hums to herself as she scrubs and dusts, sweeps, and picks up every last bottle. There are more than a few broken ones, so Haymitch makes her put shoes on finally.

If his mother were there she'd tell him he'd found himself a pretty little maid. It wouldn't have been so bad, actually, when she isn't crying, Matilda isn't bad company. She reads, apparently quite a bit.

"I haven't got anything else to do," she tells him. They've been going through the little bookshelf in one of the guestrooms and she's apparently read the library's copies of every book in Haymitch's collection.

"Books are nice," she continues as she flips through one of the novels. "They're a nice little escape."

He takes the book from her after that, takes it to his room and considers reading it later.

By the time she reaches his room she's clearly exhausted. Haymitch has mostly stayed out of her way and she was a whirlwind of cleaning on her own anyways.

"Why don't we get you home, 'Tilda," he tells her as she reaches for the handle to his main bedroom. "You're tired."

Her mouth turns down and she shakes her head. "I'm fine. There's only this room and the bathrooms left."

She's practically falling asleep on her feet, and he wonders if she's ever worked as hard as she did cleaning his house in her life.

When she turns back to the door he puts his hand on the wood, keeping it firmly shut.

"If you clean everything tonight then what will you do tomorrow?"

Matilda's pale hair floats around her head, mixing with the dust in the air, as she tilts her head to look at him. "Tomorrow?"

He's opening a can of worms, letting her think he's friends with her, he can't _have_friends. But the rest of the house smells like lemons and sunlight, so he might as well let her make his bedroom just as nice.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine.

**Light Yet To Be Found, pt 3**

Matilda comes by every weekend, without fail.

Sometimes she cleans, picks up the detritus of Haymitch's solitary lifestyle and shows him how to use the machine in the little washroom to clean his clothes, though he never does. Other times she brings sugar and cream, makes candies and fudges for him to try out. He blames her for his need to go up a pant size when his stylist, Mingus, comes with the last remaining member of his prep team, Verve, for the Victory Tour.

They fret over him, though less so than they had in years past. They're ancient. They've been District Twelve's only perennial fixtures during the Games. If Haymitch hadn't won five years prior, they would've retired. Like Maysilee and Viola Scone's stylist and team had after their deaths.

"You need to watch your figure, Haymitch. You've really let yourself go," Mingus drones on.

Haymitch just rolls his eyes. He doesn't feel like taking advice on his physical state from a man that looks like he's eaten everything in his eye line for the last twenty years.

"You'll make our work harder," Verve huffs.

He almost laughs. Making their work harder is just about his favorite thing to do. If it makes them mad he'll have Matilda bring a brick of fudge every day for the rest of their lives.

The Victor this year is a monster from Two. He eyes them all with a kind of dark hunger, a bloody fever that Haymitch knows is endemic to his district.

He gives a speech, growls it more or less, then is treated to a dinner with the shriveling old Mayor of District Twelve. Haymitch watches as he rips his food apart, licks his fingers and gnashes his teeth throughout the whole dinner. It leaves him with a mighty need for a strong drink.

It's snowing when he finally escapes the dinner. He doesn't tell Mingus and Verve goodbye, they don't expect him to and it's one of the few things he doesn't mind making them happy by doing.

He steals some of the ancient Mayor's bourbons, hides it in his coat as he stumbles out the backdoor, and heads home to wipe the entire evening from his mind.

As he's about to turn up the road that leads out of Town and to the Victors' Village he spots a light on in the sweet shop. Stumbling through the little piles of snow that have accumulated, he gets up to the window, peeks in.

Matilda has a rag in her hand, is rubbing little handprints and nose-prints off the glass case that holds all the beautiful candies she and her father make. Her hair is pulled back, but like always, bits of it have fallen loose and are dancing around her face.

Haymitch snorts. She doesn't have shoes on, of course. Her feet must be like ice.

He hasn't seen her since the weekend, and won't see her again until the next. They're in the dead center of the week, and for some reason, he misses the sound of her humming and the scent of candy that hangs around her.

She's smiling softly about something and is so absorbed with her cleaning that she doesn't feel his eyes on her.

After a minute he thinks better of disturbing her and turns, letting a knot settle in his stomach at some vague missed opportunity.

#######

"Does your dad know where you are?" Haymitch asks her one Saturday when she trudges up to his backdoor in snow boots and a coat two sizes too big for her.

She kicks the boots off as soon as she's in his door and hangs her coat on a little nail Haymitch had put up after he got tired of tripping over her things, which she continually put on the back of his favorite chair.

Her wide eyes stay focused on the hem of her dress, she'd caught it on the rails to his stairs on the back porch coming up. "I tell him I'm going to see a friend."

Haymitch almost snaps at her that he doesn't have friends, but he supposes that's a lie now. Matilda Donner has slowly, almost insidiously, wormed her way into his life. He'd feel a little lost without her visits now. It hadn't occurred to him how starved for human contact he was, even the odd human contact Matilda often provided, until she started making her weekly visits.

"He doesn't know it's me though," Haymitch continues to prod.

She looks up, blinks. A little smile forms on her lips. "I don't know."

It's devious how she gets around things. Matilda is much more clever than anyone gives her credit for, Haymitch thinks. Himself included. No one expects things from her, not jokes or brilliance or, most definitely, deceit.

As far Haymitch knows, Matilda had only ever hung around with her sister and Valencia Burdock. Maysilee is dead and Valencia may as well be, at least as far as people in Town were concerned. Married some miner and moved to the Seam, a death sentence for most girls that had grown up in the comforts of the merchant class.

Matilda's father seems more accepting than most, and from what Haymitch has gleaned he doesn't hold where a person is from, or their choices, against them. Herschel probably wouldn't mind his daughter reconnecting with her only, to his knowledge, friend. Even if it means making long treks and late returns.

He _might_, however, be a bit concerned with her constantly visiting the District drunk. By herself. Every weekend.

Haymitch smirks at her. "You're a real peach, you know that, 'Tilda?"

She grins back, pulls a pack from her bag and holds it out. "I know."

He takes it from her, examines it warily before looking up at her. "What's this?"

"Powdered chocolate." She takes it back from him and walks to his surprisingly clear countertop. "You said you liked the chocolate drink, so I've been trying to make it for you."

His mouth turns down. He remembers discussing what few things he liked in the Capitol, and he does vaguely remember mentioning hot chocolate, but he'd changed the subject quickly. She didn't need to hear about that place and he didn't need to talk about it.

A bottle of milk and another mishap with the stove later and she's produced something fairly close to hot chocolate, though it's a little lumpy.

"Do you like it?" Her mouth is in a line, eyebrows knit together in worry.

Haymitch picks up his mug, drains the last of the chunky liquid from it and smacks his lips. "Best I ever had."

#######

"The Reaping is tomorrow," Matilda tells him as she drops a scoop of ice cream in his bowl.

Haymitch grunts an acknowledgement, starts shoveling strawberries and vanilla ice cream into his mouth. They're sitting on the steps to his back porch. Matilda had spent the entire day making the dessert for him, probably as a consolation for what's coming up.

"I don't like going," she adds as she dips out her own helping, her gaze fixed on the rapidly melting mush.

He isn't really fond of attending either, but no one asked him. If it were up to him, and as a Victor he thinks it should be, he would spend the whole retched day in a drunken sleep, not see the faces of the families of the kids he's going to fail this year.

Matilda scoots a little closer, reaches out and wipes a dribble of sticky pink cream from the corner of his mouth. He almost catches her wrist, pulls her hand back to lick the traces of ice cream from her thumb, but stops himself. Instead he mentally slaps that part of his mind.

He's starved for physical contact, that's all there is to it. When he gets to the Capitol, after he sleeps off his train hangover, he's going to his favorite bar and drinking himself into oblivion. If he's lucky, he'll wake up in some woman's bed. If he's really lucky she'll be relatively attractive. He's rarely lucky though. Most of the women he runs into are…not exactly knock-outs. Especially compared to the wisp sitting next to him.

The ice cream smudge trickles down the side of her hand, along the edge of her arm. Haymitch chokes on his bite when she starts licking it off.

"Oh, Haymitch, are you okay?"

She pounds on his back, several times, until she's happy he isn't dying.

"Fine," he coughs, wipes the spittle from his face before she sees it.

Once his coughing subsides he sets his bowl down, focuses on the tree line in the distance.

"You gonna be okay?" He finally asks. "During the Reaping, I mean."

He'd gone by the sweet shop, at the midway of the week in the hopes of catching Matilda. It had become a part of his routine. He'd put his knife in his belt, go to the Hob to load up on liquor, then go by the sweet shop to get half a pound of fudge and maybe talk to Matilda. This week she had been off, running an errand for her father at the bakery, when he'd swung by.

Herschel had smiled at him over the top of his crooked glasses. "Haymitch, come for your fudge?"

Haymitch nodded, pulled out his wallet and dumped a handful of coins into his palm to hand to Herschel. "I'll take all of it today."

Herschel had stared at the coins for a few seconds before letting out a long sigh. He took his glasses off and started cleaning them with the hem of his little apron.

"Fortifying yourself for the Reaping I take it?"

He had been. He'd bought several extra bottles of white liquor in preparation for the start of what always proved to be a long few weeks.

When he didn't say anything, not even a grunt, Herschel had sighed again.

"Matilda doesn't do so well with the Reaping." He puts his glasses back on, tries to straighten them a little. "She's worse during the Games."

Haymitch nodded. It had to have been twice as hard for Matilda to see Maysilee die, her sister, a girl with her own face, skewered on national television. He could only imagine the agony she went through watching the event that took her sister from her year after year.

Actually, he didn't have to imagine. He has the same experience.

Herschel carefully wrapped the fudge, placed it in a large paper bag and handed it to Haymitch.

"She's been visiting her friend, Valencia Burdock, more now. Well, Valencia Everdeen now. She's married. Lives in the Seam, you know?" He picked the coins on the counter up one at a time. "I'm hoping she'll do better this year. Having that support back."

Haymitch gave him a little nod after that and quickly left the shop.

Talking to Herschel had told him two things, one being that Matilda had never clarified who she went to see every weekend, and two being that the Games were probably going to wreak havoc on her mental state.

Matilda sets her half eaten bowl of ice cream down, crosses her arms over her stomach and draws her knees up on the step they'd been sitting on, a little closer to her body.

"I'll live," she finally says, her chin resting on her knees, eyes set on the tree line.

Haymitch reaches out, hesitates for a second, then lets his hand come to a rest on her head. He jerks her over, lets her head come to a rest on his shoulder.

"Keep your eyes on me, okay?" He tells her as he twirls his fingers in the loose furls of her hair. "Nothing bad is going to happen to you, understand?"

She relaxes a little, melds into his side and wraps her thin arms around his middle.

He isn't sure why he's telling her anything comforting. If there's one person in the world that can't keep her from harm, it's him. He hadn't been able to protect his family and Laurel and he certainly can't protect Matilda. Not that he needs to. One nutty girl in a backwater district isn't in any real danger.

"Bad things'll happen to other people though," she whispers.

That isn't something he can deny or comfort her about though, so he just pats her shoulder, a little awkwardly, and remains quiet.

#######

Haymitch wakes on his back porch swing, the one he'd hung for Graeme just before he'd died. It's dark out, the stars are bright and only a little moonlight illuminates the empty Victors' Village.

He tries to stretch, but his arm is caught. Squinting down, he finds a mess of blonde hair curls into his chest. Confused, he blinks several times, then realizes he isn't having some weird dream. They must've fallen asleep.

They'd been tired after the ice cream, crawled up on the bench swing just to let the cold dessert settle before he walked her home. That had apparently not gone according to plan.

Without a watch he can't tell the time, but he faintly hears that damned clock chiming in the living room. Twelve times it rings. Midnight.

"Matilda," he rasps, gives her a little shake. "Matilda, we need to get you home."

She responds by burying her face in his chest a bit more. He feels her nose nuzzling him and her warm breath ghosting though the fabric of his shirt.

After a minute longer he gets her up on her feet, rubbing her eyes and yawning, but awake.

"Your dad is gonna have kittens," he grumbles as he guides her off the porch.

She nods, yawns again, but doesn't say anything.

When they're halfway to Town she wraps herself around his arm, face pressed to the sleeve of his shirt, eyes glittering as she looks up at the stars above. "They're so pretty, aren't they?"

He doesn't respond, this isn't the time for stargazing.

"What are you gonna tell your dad?" He finally asks her.

She's going to have to tell him where she's been, and Haymitch feels a sting of disappointment that when she does her visits will most likely come to an end.

"That I feel asleep," she says simply.

Haymitch snorts. "I meant about where you fell asleep."

Matilda's fingers start tracing patterns on the arm of his shirt as she thinks. Her mouth turns up. "On a bench."

He breaks into a fit of laughter at that. She's not lying, but she's not exactly going to be telling the truth. He doubts her father will let her get far with her lie of omission, but she'll certainly put forth a good effort.

#######

The next morning comes too early, too bright, too loud.

The escort, Barnaby or Beetlejuice or something confusing like that, is as shrill as the woman they'd had to listen to for the past four years. Haymitch had a going away party for her last year when she told him she was being promoted to Two. Granted he didn't invite her, or anyone else for that matter. It had just been him, his bed, and several bottles of scotch.

Best going away party he's ever attended.

He keeps his eyes focused on Matilda. She's duller, a washed out version of herself, as she stands in the crowd to watch the Reaping. Her arm is wrapped around her father's and Haymitch can see her eyes focused on the stone ground at her feet.

Everything moves quickly after that.

The names are called, a pair of scraggly looking kids from the Seam, like most years, and they're all ushered off to their doom.

He doesn't see Matilda, not so much as a wisp of her pale hair, before he's ushered onto the train and back to the Capitol.

#######

Haymitch's time in the Capitol starts just as it always does, in a bottle.

He drinks from the moment District Twelve slips out of view until the Capitol blazes by his window.

Bottle still in hand, he stumbles from the train, ignores his Tributes as they're carted off to be prepared for the parade. If it weren't for Bartleby, or whatever his name was, Haymitch would've missed his tributes dressed, yet again, as coal miners.

Once he shakes off BigPainInTheAss he heads for his bar.

"You could try _helping _your poor Tributes you know?"

Wiress takes the seat beside him and waves off the bartender. She'd told Haymitch once she liked to have a clear head. He told her she'd do better with a clear conscience, but as that wasn't even a remote possibility she might want to at least try some wine.

He cuts her a look but doesn't take his elbows off the bar. Downing the last of his shot, he gestures for the bartender to bring the next.

"Tried that a couple of times," he tells her when the next drink is in his hand. "Didn't do them, or me, any good."

Those kids were just as dead as the ones he'd not helped. All the guidance in the world didn't do idiots with no desire any good.

She nods, he just catches it out the corner of his eyes.

"Ruined any lives lately?" He asks when he gets tired of her boring holes in his head.

"No," she answers simply. "But the Games _are_ just beginning."

He snorts. He doesn't like her, but she's sharp.

"What do you want, Wiress?" He finally turns to her.

Wiress rests her elbow on the bar; her eyes are set on him, a small smile on her face.

"You should be careful."

Haymitch rolls his eyes, spins his seat so that his back is to her.

"I'm serious, Haymitch. Just because you think they've stopped watching you, think they've forgotten you, that doesn't mean they have."

The chair spins back, he glares at her. "_They're _watching me or _you're _watching me?"

Wiress shrugs. "One in the same, aren't they?"

They were, and that burns him. The Victors should've at least had one another to commiserate with, but the Capitol didn't even let them have that. They're all separated though, divided out by what makes them useful, pitted against each other.

She takes the glass from him, sets it on the bar and frowns. "They might not need you for anything anymore, but that doesn't mean they won't toy with you for their own amusement."

Snatching the drink back up and downing it, he turns his back on her again. "Waste of time if you ask me."

"Maybe," she says evenly. "They're a bit like us in that regard though. They have a lot of time to plot. Time to waste waiting for plans to come together."

Her chair makes a squeaking noise as she gets up. He hears her shoes clicking on the concrete floor as she circles his seat.

"They haven't forgiven you for making them look foolish, Haymitch," she says once she's in front of him. "They probably never will. What happened to your family, to Laynee-"

"Laurel," he snaps.

"-_Laurel_," she corrects, "that isn't a one off thing. Just because they had reasons to kill them, doesn't mean they _always_ need a current reason. Punishing you for past mistakes is enough for them. Be careful."

With that she turns, disappears into the smoky haze of the bar.

Downing another drink he remembers thinking if he'd have listened to Wiress after his Games he might've at least saved his mother and Graeme. He knows he should listen to her this time, but he's a little selfish. Matilda is the only bright spot in his life, and he doesn't want to give her up just yet. His stubborn streak, the one that had refused to let him die, even after that damned girl had gutted him, flares to life. He hates having someone tell him what to do.

He tells the bartender to leave the bottle the next time.

Being drunk is the only way he's going to live with himself for repeating his own history.


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine

**Light Yet To Be Found, pt 4**

AN: Ack! I've forgotten the past few times, but as always, thanks to FortuneFaded2012 for beta'ing.

#######

Haymitch is home the day after the boy from Six wins the Games.

Not bright enough for Wiress and the 'scouts' and not ruthless enough for Brutus' broad of killers, he's bound for the group that is bought and sold, Haymitch knows that just by looking at him. That's Cash's problem though, and he's welcome to it.

He drinks right up until they hit the District line, until he can see the soft glow of the Town from his window. It's late, or very early, he isn't sure really, but he wants to take the route home that passes by the sweet shop on the off chance Matilda is still up.

She isn't, of course, the shop is as dark as all the others around it. Haymitch still squints up at the windows above, just in case.

Annoyed with himself for acting like an idiot, he trudges off to the house. Matilda will come in the morning, it's Saturday after all.

When the sun rises though, Matilda doesn't come.

Haymitch sits on his back porch all morning and into the blazing afternoon, but she never appears. A knot forms in his stomach.

Matilda might've gotten in trouble. She's made the trek up to his house for months, but it's still possible that she took a wrong turn. Or someone might've hurt her.

A million possibilities, each worse than the last, flash through his head.

Staggering to his feet, which have fallen asleep, he starts for the Town.

It takes him less time than usual to make it to Town. Maybe because he isn't drunk, or maybe because he's terrified, he isn't sure.

He stops just short of the shop, straightens his now disheveled clothes and wipes the perspiration from his face, then carefully opens the door.

The jingle goes off overhead and Herschel calls out from the back.

"I'll be up in a minute."

A little fidgety, Haymitch paces in front of the candy display until Herschel appears in the little entryway between the front and the back. He wipes his hands on his apron, smiling wanly as he does. "You're back."

"Yeah," Haymitch nods. "I, uh, came to see 'Tilda…"

His mind stalls out when he tries to come up with a reason he came to see her.

Herschel nods. "She's in her room."

It gets a little too quiet after that. Herschel stares and Haymitch scratches at the days growth of stubble on his cheek.

After nearly a minute, a very long minute, Haymitch's mind swims through the gallons of drinks he's had since he left for the Games.

_Shit._

He'd completely forgotten that Matilda had undoubtedly had to tell her father what friend she'd been visiting over all those months. The knot in his stomach tightens.

"Uh, look, sir, I just wanted to, uh…"

His tongue, normally quick and sharp fails him. He can't form words in his defense, can't even form words at all.

Herschel's mouth twitches up. "You don't have to be so nervous."

That's a matter of opinion. Haymitch is plenty certain he needs to be nervous. There's no telling what Herschel thinks he's been doing with his daughter. He probably thinks Haymitch told her to keep their visits a secret.

"When Mati didn't get home at her normal time, the night before the Reaping, I gave her a few hours then went to the Seam to look for her," Herschel begins telling him. "She had a…meltdown, I guess you could say, a couple of years ago right before the Games. I was afraid she'd done it again. When I got to Valencia's house, her friend that moved to the Seam, she told me she hadn't seen Matilda in ages."

Flashes of Laurel's father, of the fathers of the few girls he'd dated before her, race through his head. Which is ridiculous, he isn't dating Matilda and her father is about as intimidating as a kitten.

Herschel smiles, takes off his glasses and begins cleaning them benignly.

"I came home, worried sick about her. I almost went to the Peacekeepers for help, I was so desperate. The minute I came around the corner to the shop though, there she was." He chuckles. "She just looked at me and asked if I'd gone out for milk."

Haymitch puts his hands in his pocket, feels for his knife. Herschel is clearly working up to castrating him. He needs to be ready to defend himself.

"She told me she's been coming out to see you." Herschel puts his glasses back on. "Eventually, I mean."

While he doesn't seem mad, it seems a little unlikely that he isn't.

"So you told her she couldn't come out anymore?"

The little smile on Herschel's mouth fades. "Why would I do that?"

There are at least a hundred reasons Haymitch can think of, but he doesn't put them in Herschel's head. He just stands, mouth gaping slightly, staring at the man.

"She got a headache during the finale," Herschel sighs. "Been in her room with the curtains drawn ever since. It'll pass. Mostly I think it's just stress. All the blood and screaming are reminders, you know?"

Haymitch is all too familiar with how much screaming and blood can affect a person. He wishes he'd been allowed to come back sooner now.

"Can I go up and see her?"

He expects Herschel to say no, it's improper or some bullshit like that, but he just smiles again. His powdered sugar dusted arm waves to the entryway.

"You go up the stairs, right there, through the living room to the hall. Her room is the door on the right."

Hesitantly, Haymitch nods, slowly makes his way around the counter and past Herschel. He takes the steps two at a time and finds himself in their living room.

It's plain, just a few pictures on the wall. There's one of Herschel and what Haymitch assumes must be his long dead wife and several of a pair of blonde girls that are instantly recognizable as Matilda and Maysilee. The carpet is worn, flattened in a few spots, and the sickly blue paint is chipped on the walls.

Feet making an unnatural amount of noise on the squeaky floor, Haymitch quickly passes through the room and down the short hall to Matilda's room. He considers knocking, but thinks that might make her headache worse. Instead he opens the door, cringing when it makes a creaking noise.

Matilda is curled up, back to the door, when he enters.

She doesn't say anything, doesn't even move, so Haymitch takes the few short steps across the tiny room to her bed. When she still doesn't stir he sits at the edge of her bed, reaches out and smoothes the tangles from her hair.

For the first time since he entered the room she makes a noise, a soft little sigh.

The bed jerks as she rolls over. Her hazy blue eyes flutter open. It takes her a few seconds to focus, and even then she still seems confused.

"Why are you in my room, Haymitch?"

He chuckles. "Your dad let me up."

Her nose wrinkles up and she brings her hand to her head. "I've had the worst headache."

Haymitch takes her hand from her forehead, gives it a squeeze as he smiles down at her. "Better get over it quick. My house is a mess."

For a minute she just stares at him. Then a smile, slow and uncertain, forms on her lips. "You've only been home one day."

He pulls her hand to his lips, gives the knuckles a quick kiss. "I'm a messy guy."

Matilda grins. "You are, aren't you?"

#######

When she comes out the next day he tells her to close her eyes.

"I have a surprise for you," he tells her.

She gives him a scrutinizing look, wrinkles her nose up, but finally lets her lids droop down over her wide blue eyes.

Haymitch reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small velvet bag with a silken drawstring. Opening it, he dumps the contents into his palm. A lone white sphere rolls out. A small pearl.

After his Tributes had died, only minutes into the bloodbath, he'd left the Training Center again and gone for a long walk, gotten more than a few drinks, then stumbled down one of the many glittering avenues lined with luxury items. It was teeming with loud, obnoxious Capitolites buying things at ridiculous prices that they would wear once then toss. Everything was expendable to them.

He'd about had his fill of it; the perfumes and incense were making him nauseated, when he spotted the boy by the bench.

It wasn't that he didn't fit in that stood out to Haymitch, he did, but at the same time he most definitely did not. He was dressed in all black, something Haymitch had noticed a few of the youngest generation wearing, and the only color on him was the reflective gold of his eyeliner. Unlike the rest of the shimmering and shining people twittering around him, the boy was calm, had a soft smile and was gesturing calmly to the display beside him as a woman, all feathers and diamonds, nodded.

She was mesmerized by what he was showing her, which appeared to be jewelry. Her hands, already weighed down by emeralds and rubies, were reverently touching each piece.

After several minutes, she handed the boy a small pouch and he gathered up several of his expensive looking necklace and earrings, wrapped them up, and gave them to her.

The woman left looking completely enchanted, and not twittering at all.

Intrigued, the boy had shut up a Capitolite, no small feat, Haymitch stumbled over to him, collapsed onto the bench beside the display.

"Whadaya got, kid?"

The boy, who looked no more than fifteen, didn't cringe or flinch at the tone of Haymitch's voice. He simply stared, let his mouth turn up slightly, and waved his hand at the display.

"I'm an artist," he told him. "I craft jewelry."

That had been easy enough to guess. Haymitch squinted at the jewelry. It was pretty, gorgeous really, but not gaudy and certainly not something he'd have expected to silence one of the women of Capitol society.

"What's so special about this crap?" Haymitch asked as he pulled out his flask and took a swig.

The boy remained calm, picked up a pendant with a white and silver, iridescent sphere on it. He held it up in the streetlight.

"Each piece is handcrafted. Unique. Just like every individual human is unique." He put the pearl pendant in Haymitch's palm. "No one piece is like any other you will ever find, unlike every other article of jewelry on this avenue. Each owner will have something that is truly their own and not a mass produced trinket that will be out of vogue by the next season."

Haymitch snorted. "They actually believe that?"

He nodded, "And so do I."

"Not good to buy the shit you shovel, anyone ever told you that?" Haymitch took another drink and tried to hand the pearl back.

A smile, a real smile formed on the boy's calm face as he shook his head. "Keep it. I'd be honored to have a Victor possessing one of my creations.'

Caught off guard, Haymitch frowned. "Who said I was a Victor?"

The boy chuckled. "Haymitch Abernathy, Victor of the Fiftieth Hunger Games, the Second Quarter Quell. Believe it or not, they do teach us something in the Capitol schools. A few of us even learn something."

The clock tolled midnight and the boy had started packing his things. He smiled again at Haymitch's outstretched hand. "It's a gift."

When he was completely packed he turned, held out his hand, waited for Haymitch to do the same. His handshake was firm, which Haymitch vaguely remembered his father having once said was a sign of a good man.

"I plan on being a stylist when I'm older, wiser. Perhaps we'll meet again."

And with that he'd gone, leaving Haymitch confused and with a pearl pendant.

Having about as much use for jewelry as he had for non-alcoholic drinks, he'd packed it away and planned on using it to bet against Brutus and his Tribute, but then decided against it.

Matilda had no jewelry, or at least none that he'd ever seen her wearing. The only thing she ever adorned herself with was her pin, or, as she'd finally told him, Maysilee's pin.

"I keep mine in the jewelry box and I wear hers," she'd explained at the beginning of the spring. "It's like having a piece of her with me."

While he thought that was a little stupid, he simply let it rest.

When he'd come home from the Capitol he'd dug through his things, made a spectacular mess of his room, and found his mother's silver chain and put the pendant on it. He would've given it to her in her room, when he'd gone to see if she was okay, but had stopped himself. For some reason he didn't want her father coming in and finding Haymitch giving her something so seemingly personal to be a possibility.

He takes the necklace and walks behind her, gently places it around her neck. Brushing her hair away he clasps it. Taking her shoulders, he guides her to the little mirror in the powder room, which he thinks it the stupidest name for a room he's ever heard.

"Take a look."

Matilda's eyes flutter open and quickly settle on the pendant. Her delicate fingers reach up, grasp it and roll it as she inspects it.

"It's beautiful." She spins to face him. Her eyes are still fixed on her gift though. "What is it?"

"A pearl," he tells her.

"A pearl?" Her lip puckers in thought. "What's that?"

He plucks it from her fingers and rolls it between his own.

"When I was on my Victory Tour they took me to a pearl farm. They told me that in nature, pearls are made when something irritating gets in an oyster's shell. It layers the irritant in this stuff to keep it from driving it nuts." He smirks at her. "Thought it was a fitting gift for you."

Her lips twitch up. "You're layering me up to keep me from driving you nuts?"

"'Tilda, sweetheart," he sighs, runs his hand over his face. "I was nuts way before you got here."

They fall into their routine again, she comes on weekends and he stops by the shop midway through the week. It's a comfortable arrangement.

One Saturday Haymitch wakes to Matilda rummaging, noisily, through his guestroom closet.

"I finally realized what's missing in your living room," she tells him when he groggily asks her what the _hell_ she's doing.

She makes a triumphant sound, pulls several photos from a dusty box.

It takes a minute for him to realize what she's found. He takes the ancient looking things from her and shuffles through them.

They're of his family, the only ones that survived the fire. One of his brother, a few years ago, during school. Another of the brothers his mother had made when they were both small. The final one is of the family, Haymitch, Graeme, their mother and father, taken just after Graeme was born.

He hands them back to her. "What about them?"

Her mouth turns down. "Don't you want to see your family?"

His arms cross over his chest and he glares at her. "They're dead. What good does seeing them do?"

For a minute she's quiet, toying with the edges of the photos, then she gently places them back in the box, puts the lid on it and pushes it back in the closet.

"My mother and sister are dead too," she says as she gets up, brushes some dust from her skirt. "I still like to see them. Remember they were real."

Matilda closes the closet door, keeps her eyes fixed on Haymitch's feet as she tries to walk out. He catches her by the elbow though, and she freezes at his touch.

Tugging her, he slowly maneuvers her to the bed, gestures for her to sit before he flops beside her.

"My mother would be disappointed in me," he finally tells her, rubbing a hand over his rough face. "I'm a drunk and an embarrassment just like my dad and she'd hate me."

It's the truth as he sees it. His mother had spent all his life making him strong, making him smart so that he could crawl out of the misery of the Seam.

"If you've got enough brains you might make more of yourself," she'd told him. "Our place in life isn't set. You've got a chance if you're smart enough to find it."

Well he'd found it. Unfortunately it was during the Games and it only made his misery of a life that much more horrible. Now he's nothing short of everything his mother disliked, a drunk and a waste of potential.

There's also the fact that he got her and Graeme killed because he hadn't used his brains, let his stubbornness overrule his good sense. Having her sharp eyes focus on him day in and day out as he mounds insult upon the injuries of his life, makes her sacrifices that much more pointless, isn't something he can stomach.

Matilda takes his hand, begins rubbing circles on his rough skin with the soft pads of her fingers.

"Your mother was so proud of you. She told us each time we saw her," she tells him softly. "I think mothers love their children even when they disappoint them."

His free hand rubs his eyes, brushes away moisture that has formed there.

"My mother died when Maysilee and I were born," she says as she laces her fingers with his. "And I know I'm probably not the daughter she would've wanted. I'm odd, I know that, but I think she would've loved me despite that."

Haymitch's eyes blink away a few more tears he refuses to admit to, settle on Matilda's soft blonde hair. He chuckles.

"You're probably right," he swallows down a lump in his throat. "I accidently ruined my new shoes when I was ten, only new pair I'd ever had, and she was furious. Whipped me so hard I still sit sideways sometimes. She still tucked me in that night, told me she loved me."

That's hardly the worst thing he'd ever done in his life, but it's the only one he can think of at the moment that doesn't involve a girl, which he doesn't feel like discussing with Matilda.

He unlaces their fingers and wraps his arm around her shoulder, pulls her to his side and kisses the top of her head.

"You're as good a daughter as anyone would want," he tells her. "Don't ever think any different."

She tilts her head up, gives him a slight smile. "Only if you don't."

He isn't sure he won't, but if a little white lie is what it takes to make her happy, then he'll gladly do it.

That night he digs out the photos and puts them on the mantle above the fireplace. Matilda doesn't say anything when she notices, but a small smile forms on her lips. It makes her happy, and that's a good enough reason to leave them up for him.

#######

The night after Graeme's birthday, Matilda tries to get him to plant a garden.

She has it plotted out, stepped off, early one morning before he's even woken. He probably would've slept through her planting if she hadn't purposefully woke him up.

"Do you want tomatoes?" She'd asked, her nose an inch from his.

He'd responded by covering his head with his comforter.

The hint that he not only didn't want tomatoes, or to be woke at all after his long night of drinking and trying to forget, is lost on her though.

She crawls on top of him, settles her body against his side. "Would you like onions instead?"

He reaches up, pulls the comforter down a fraction and glares at her. "No. Get off me."

There's not much conviction behind his words, he actually finds himself enjoying the heat and weight of her body on his. He still holds his glare on her though.

Matilda frowns, her eyebrows knit together. Her cool hand reaches up and rakes through his hair. "Do you want some tea? When I get my headaches daddy makes me tea with mint."

"Does it help?" He asks as his eyes close. The sun peaking though the shades is too bright and her hand through his hair is too comforting.

"No," she says simply. "But the doctor says I think too much. Cry too much. That's why I get headaches. Yours is from drinking though, so maybe it'll help."

He isn't so sure. Honestly, he'd rather just let her continue to run her finger through his hair. That seems to be relieving his tension better than any stupid tea.

Slowly, lazily, his eyes open and try to focus on her soft features. "You still get headaches?"

She's seemed fine to him, since the Games ended anyway. In fact, in the last year he hasn't heard her speak of her headaches except in passing.

Matilda shrugs. "Sometimes, but not like I used to." She smiles. "Maybe you keep me from thinking too much."

"I have that effect on people," he grunts.

After he lets her spend a few more minutes with her fingers in his hair, he finally gets up, stretches and puts on a shirt and, to Matilda's absolute mortification, pants.

Her delicate fingers press to her eyes as she turns her back on him as he tumbles out of bed.

Haymitch chuckles. "Don't come into a man's room if you aren't prepared to see his drawers, sweetheart."

It takes some time, but he finally convinces her that a garden would be a waste of time for him. He spends most of the week picking at what she brings out each weekend, and he has no desire to water and weed a patch of land.

"I can at least plant some mint. It doesn't take much care," she tells him. Her nose wrinkles up. "And you can chew it. It might help with the alcohol smell."

He jabs her in the side with his finger. "Are you saying I stink?"

A little smile forms on her lips, her eyes cut to him. "I'm saying a shower wouldn't hurt."

A chuckle rumbles out of his chest. "Don't spare my feelings 'Tilda."

She hands him a mint leaf. "I won't."

#######

Haymitch is always pleased to see his pendant, dangling on his mother's thin chain, settled on Matilda's chest. It's a gift and nothing more, but part of his mind keeps jabbing him and telling him it _could be_more if he wanted it to be.

Why his mind feels the need to keep telling him that though, is a mystery.

It isn't until he comes into the shop, his regular day at his regular time, and finds a man talking to Matilda that he understands that voice a little better.

The man isn't particularly tall, average at best. He's slim, but not painfully thin like men from the Seam often are. He's older than Haymitch, though probably only by five or so years, and he already has a balding patch at the back of his head.

Matilda is smiling pleasantly, nodding at the man a bit vacantly. She does laugh when he says something, and it annoys Haymitch so much he nearly doesn't go in.

She spots him though, glaring daggers at the man's back, and brightens considerably, waves him in.

The man turns and smiles at Haymitch as he lets the door drop behind him and the bell overhead jingles.

"Haymitch, your late," her eyebrows come together and her mouth turns down in disappointment as she glances at the clock to her left.

Sure enough, it reads ten minutes past his normal time.

"Sorry, sweetheart, got held up," he grunts, keeps his eyes on the man.

Smiling pleasantly, the man puts his hand out. "Daniel Undersee. New magistrate."

As Haymitch hadn't had any real love for the old magistrate, he couldn't say whether he cared if they had a new one or not.

He thinks about letting Undersee's hand hang in the air until he gets uncomfortable and pulls it back, but he catches Matilda's little frown, the slight tilt of her head, out the corner of his eye and relents.

"Haymitch Abernathy," he mumbles as he shakes the other man's hand.

"Matilda was just telling me about you," Undersee says. "Lovely necklace you gave her."

There's nothing malicious in his tone, but the levelness of it strikes him oddly. It takes him a second to place it, but when he does a chill runs up his spine.

It's the same tone Wiress always speaks in.

His dislike of Daniel Undersee intensifies at the realization.

"So, you're a Victor," Undersee begins pleasantly.

"The one and only in this dump," Haymitch answers.

Undersee's mouth twitches. "I can see why Matilda thinks you're so charming."

Before he can snap back that he's got more charm in his big toe than Undersee has in his whole balding body, Matilda pipes up.

"I didn't say-I never said-"

She's flush, bright patches are blossoming on her cheeks and she has the backs of her hands against her face to cool the heat.

Undersee gives her an amused look, reaches over and gives her a little pat on the shoulder. He turns back to Haymitch and smiles again.

"I was just telling Matilda there's going to be a new Head Peacekeeper, Cray or something like that. Just felt it was my duty to let people know." His smile falters. "He's got…a bit of a reputation with ladies."

That seems to annoy Undersee, but he doesn't say anything more on the subject, he just bids Matilda goodbye and tells Haymitch it was nice to meet him.

Haymitch is finishing off a deep scowl at his back when Matilda reaches over the counter and grabs his hand. He turns back to her and finds her eyes fixed on his feet.

"I didn't say you were charming."

He snorts. "Well you should've. I'm delightful."

Her eyes flicker up and a smile slowly works her lips up. "But that's a secret, right?"

He nods. "Just between you and me."

#######

"Do you like going to the Capitol?" Matilda asks as she finishes off her bowl of ice cream. She's been asking about that hellhole more and more recently.

They're on the back porch. It's probably the last warm day of the year; Haymitch can see the cold front moving in on the horizon.

Haymitch scowls. "No."

Her hands begin toying with the hem of her skirt. "Are there a lot of pretty girls there?"

When he doesn't answer, for several minutes, she begins shifting in her seat, twisting her fingers together.

"There seem to be," she finally says. Her voice has a trace of defeat in it that he doesn't quite understand.

He huffs, takes another bite of his ice cream. "Bunch of plastic dolls. Fake, every part of them."

Matilda chews her lip, eyes still trained on her tangled fingers. "You still like them though. You had lipstick on your collar."

His hand automatically jumps to his collar. A stupid thing to do, it's a new shirt.

"When?" He doesn't remember any when he'd come back last, after the Games, and he hadn't been _that_ drunk.

Pale hair floats gently around her head as she shakes it. "On your coat."

That had to have been months ago. He scowls at her. "What are you on about?"

Frustration etches on her features, though he doesn't think it's with him.

"You-The coat you had me wear back in October. The first time you walked me home."

While he remembers putting her in a coat he can't say he remembers much about it not even if she'd ever brought it back. There might've been lipstick on it.

"And there was perfume on it," she adds.

"Mighta been," he shrugs, tugs at the collar of his shirt. Why does any of this matter to her?

Her lip has to be sore, she's chewing it so hard. "You must like them if you let them kiss you."

That gets a good laugh out of him. "You don't know much about the Capitol if you think that, sweetheart."

She's read one too many love stories if she thinks kissing equals liking.

"It doesn't matter if you like someone or not. Kissing is just kissing,' he tells her.

Her lip finally gets a break as she releases it. "Does it matter to you?"

He shakes his head. "Not anymore."

When she turns away, looks back out at the Town, he puts his ice cream down and pulls out his flask. It's still full, Matilda is enough of a trip, combining her and it is a terrible idea so he normally avoids it until at least the ends of her visits. Unscrewing the top, he takes a long drink then offers it to her. She never takes it, but he does it anyway just to watch her nose wrinkle up at the smell.

Instead of her normal look of disgust, she takes it.

At first he thinks she's going to dump it out to get back at him for laughing at her, but then she puts it to her mouth.

She hesitates for a minute, then takes a deep breath and tips it up.

Her face scrunches up, Haymitch almost moves from his seat because he thinks she's going to throw up. She holds her swallow of whisky in her mouth for a few seconds before swallowing it down and gagging. "That's terrible."

Haymitch takes the flask back, laughing at her expression, and takes another drink.

"It's an acquired taste."

Whether or not she believes him she still nods, continues to smack her lips and wrinkle her nose. Haymitch stuffs his flack back in his pocket, picks his bowl back up and begins eating the last spoonfuls from the bottom.

Matilda scoots closer and reaches up to wipe his mouth. It's become a game with him, to let a few dribbles come out the side of his mouth just to let her wipe them away with her fingers. It satisfies some weird need he has and she seems to think it's funny.

Just like with the flask though, she changes the rules even though she doesn't know she's playing.

Her fingers hover just a hair from the side of his mouth and he's already anticipating the chill of her fingers against his skin when she pulls them back.

Annoyance flares in his stomach at the missed touch and he turns his head to see what's stopped her when something warm and moist collides with the corner of his mouth.

Startled, he jerks back, realizing too late that it had been her lips and not something much less pleasant on him.

He stares at her for a minute. She's less than a foot from him, on her hands and knees, eyes wide and worried. Her lips aren't in a pucker, but in a little frown.

Before she can do anything else, the alcohol has clearly affected her, he stands, pulls her to her feet and takes her by the shoulders.

"Matilda, _what_ are you doing?"

"You said it didn't matter." Her eyes fall to her feet.

He freezes. Was that why she'd been asking? Prodding him to see how he'd react.

His hands ghost up her arms, to her face, cupping her cheeks. "It matters to you though, doesn't it?"

Her eyes slowly rise, but still don't meet his as she nods.

"Matilda." He tilts her chin up, making her look at him. "If it matters to you then that's all that matters, understand?"

Chin quivering, she nods. Tears start to leak out the corners of her eyes. Haymitch sweeps them away with his thumbs. Her cheeks flush, start to burn under his hands.

She starts to back up, pull away from him, but he holds her in place.

As much as he tries to stop himself, he can't. He's lost his self-control.

Before the part of his mind that normally makes sound decisions can come out of the ice cream coma he's put it in, the other part, the part that told him taking Briar Clemson up to the slag heap was a good idea despite the fact that she was dating one of the largest men he'd ever met takes over.

Matilda tastes like strawberries and sugar with hints of his whisky just barely hanging in her breath. Her lips don't respond for a few seconds then her arms are around his neck, pulling her up closer, pressing to him achingly tight. Haymitch lifts her and somehow ends up pinning her between himself and the backdoor. She makes a small noise, but doesn't break from him.

He isn't sure how long it goes on, but not long enough in his opinion.

Finally, he needs air.

While he's catching his breath Matilda keeps kissing him, pressing her soft lips along his jaw and down his neck. When her hands start to trail down, picking at the buttons on his shirt he comes to his senses.

"Stop." He catches her hands, presses them between his. "Matilda."

She's flush, a gorgeous pink along her cheeks and down her neck, disappearing into her blouse.

"But-"

"No," he tells her firmly.

Her eyes fall again, back down to her feet as she nods. "Oh."

The defeat is back in her voice, drooping her shoulders and making her seem painfully small. Haymitch reaches up, runs a hand through her hair, brushes the wild strands from her face.

"It isn't 'oh', 'Tilda," he sighs. "I can't, understand?"

She looks up, fixes him in a watery stare.

Before he knows what's happening, she grabs him by the neck, pulls him down, starts kissing him again. "I don't care."

He can tell she doesn't. Her fierce grasp and relentless kisses are making that abundantly clear.

And if she doesn't care, why should he?

#######

When they fall through the door, make their way through the kitchen and into the living room, they trip over the couch and Haymitch notices the clock and, unenthusiastically, puts an end to their activities. They haven't gotten far, which is probably for the best, but if he doesn't put his foot down, and firmly, she'll get him to the point of no return.

"You'll be late," he grumbles as he fixes the buttons on his shirt and reaches out to right her skirt.

"I'm a big girl," she tells him with a coy little smile.

He's well aware of that. Painfully aware.

"You're going home," he tells her again. Before he can change his mind.

Taking her hand he pulls her from the house, down the road toward the Town.

When it comes into view she stops.

"Matilda," he groans. She's making this too damn hard.

"I can go from here," she says as she begins to twine her fingers together. Her bare feet take a few steps toward him, then bounce up on her toes as she presses a kiss to his cheek. "I'll see you Wednesday."

And with that she's gone.

Haymitch rubs his cheek. It's rough, he hasn't shaved in a few days. Matilda will probably have patches of irritation on her face from kissing him.

And for some reason that makes him smile.


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine

**Light Yet To Be Found, pt 5**

AN-Thanks to FortuneFanded2012 for betaing.

#######

After watching Matilda's blonde head dance out of sight, Haymitch goes to the cemetery. He goes to Laurel's grave.

For a while he just stares at the stone, traces the letters 'Laurel Wills' with his eyes. Then he takes out his flask and empties the last few swallows down his throat, instantly wishing there were more.

The sun vanishes, the moon wakes, and Haymitch stares.

He doesn't feel guilty for kissing Matilda. Part of him thinks he should, he's the reason Laurel is nothing but dust six feet under now, he'd thought he loved her. It isn't like he hasn't kissed other girls since she'd died, he has, but that had been in the Capitol. Reality ran backwards there, he knows that now. Kissing and sex and all the things that come with those two things don't require emotion there.

If he'd have realized _that_ earlier, if he hadn't wanted to be his own master, not have nameless faceless beings dictating who he did what with and when, his brother and mother would be alive.

He's in Twelve though. Matilda isn't a plastic woman that wants to use and be used. She isn't someone who'll be gone in the morning or that he can run from.

Kissing Matilda requires emotion.

He'd known it was coming to this. Wiress' warning and his jealousy had let him know. His own mind had been telling him, if he'd had brains enough to listen. Which he hadn't.

His mind is telling him he needs to cut her off. She's just going to end up like Laurel.

For a minute he just covers his eyes, presses his palms to them until it hurts.

_Laurel._

He shouldn't feel guilty. She's dead. What he does and who he does it with isn't any of her concern. If she were still alive there isn't even a guarantee they'd be together. They'd only been kids really. For all he knows they'd have broken up.

That's what part of his mind says.

The other keeps rolling through possibilities.

If he hadn't been Reaped. If he hadn't pissed off the Capitol using their force field as a weapon. If he had just swallowed his pride and sold out.

They might all be alive. His mother, brother, and Laurel would all be alive and he wouldn't be having a séance for his own damned soul in the cemetery.

He and Laurel might've had kids. Maybe not by now, but in the future. She would've been a terrible mother, he thinks. Her temper was worse than his, and that was saying something. They would've lived in the Seam and he'd have been a miner, covered from head to toe in coal every night.

They'd never talked about that kind of thing, they were only kids themselves. They'd never even talked about marriage….

Then there was Matilda.

Living, breathing, sweet Matilda.

He can't imagine her life being much different than it is now. Working with her father, reading, and working in her little garden. Even if Maysilee were still alive, Matilda would still probably be living the same life. The only change to her life would've been him.

Before everything had gone to hell he would've never looked twice at 'Mad Mati'. She was invisible to him, unless she was being taunted. Now that they were older most everyone had grown out of that, she probably doesn't even register on anyone's radar.

'Mad Mati' is just a memory to them. She would've been just a memory to him.

His head starts to throb, but for the first time in a long time it isn't from the alcohol.

Matilda, even as just a ghost, is still better off than she is with him. With him, she's got a target on her back, that's what Wiress had been telling him.

Haymitch grinds his teeth.

It's the same as when they'd tried to make him be their pawn. They're calling the shots and it burns him. That stubborn streak flares to life in his chest.

Wiress is wrong. He's just a drunk from a backwater District. There's no use for him and even less of a reason to ruin what's left of his life.

They'll leave him alone, because there's nothing left he can give them.

With that thought to comfort him he stomps off into the dark, leaving Laurel's stone in peace.

#######

Nothing really changes after that, other than the kissing that is. Which Haymitch finds he doesn't mind. Matilda has the good sense to keep their…well, whatever they're doing, quiet, without him having to tell her, and for some reason that takes some of the tension from his shoulders. He hadn't wanted to explain his position, all the nasty details, to her. Matilda, in her odd way, already knew they had to be quiet.

Matilda comes out on weekends and Haymitch goes by the sweet shop on Wednesdays, says hello to her father when he's there and slowly warms up to the new Magistrate. He's at the sweet shop far more than Haymitch is comfortable with, and he lets him know.

"Don't you have anything _else_ to do, Danny-boy?"

Undersee smiles. "I like the ambiance here."

He lost masculinity points for using the word 'ambiance' in Haymitch's book.

Other than being obnoxiously present, chatting with Matilda, and being a government stooge, Undersee isn't so bad.

During one of their frequent run-ins he'd even muttered less than flattering things about his current employer. That had won him back some of the masculinity points he'd lost.

"Who'd you piss off to get sent to this hellhole?" Haymitch asks during one of their many shared afternoons at the sweet shop.

Undersee chuckles. "I'm from Ten. This might be an improvement."

Having seen Ten only once, during his Victory Tour, Haymitch can't really say if he agrees or not.

"I've been shuffled through several Districts," Undersee tells him with a rueful smirk. "Part of the training for government jobs. They think it instills some sort of desire in us to bring the best of our District to the one we are assigned to."

Haymitch picks a pecan out of his teeth. "I take it that's not exactly what's happened."

Undersee takes a long drink from the iced tea Matilda had brought out to them. He chews a piece of ice for a few minutes before he speaks. "I'd say it just showed _me_ how cruel each District can be. In their own unique ways. My home District included."

Chaff had mentioned, between drinks and passing out, some of the things about Eleven. Haymitch doesn't remember most of it, but he remembers a nauseated feeling and the distinct desire to never hear what his friend had told him ever again. Most definitely not while sober.

He's sure if he bothered to get to know the other Victors, more than to grunt at them or throw up on them, he might know more. That critical period is probably past though, and judging by Undersee's distasteful expression, that might be for the best.

Looking at the clock, Undersee frowns. "I have a meeting with that new Head Peacekeeper."

He gets up, runs a hand through his thinning hair with a grimace, and sighs.

Haymitch shoots him a narrow look. "Why they making you meet with him? Shouldn't the Mayor do that?"

Taking a deep breath, Undersee gives him a tense sort of smile.

"You would think, wouldn't you? And yet here I am. Doing his work." His eyebrows rise. "Curious, isn't it?"

It is. Mayor Theon isn't old, though no one would argue he's any good at his job. He has a love of public punishment, which hadn't exactly endeared him to the people of his adopted District. Other than to make the number of starving people in the District double, he hasn't done much.

"I've been tasked with determining how to save the District money. Not really a part of my job description, but I feel I've found a brilliant solution." Undersee picks his hat up off the table. "After talking with several miners I've determined that we waste an awful lot of money on that fence the last Mayor constructed. Research shows that it will do just as good a job keeping the wilds out while off as it does electrified."

Haymitch vaguely remembers his father talking about people venturing outside the fence, searching the woods for sustenance. It isn't impossible to escape the confines of the District with the fence electrified, as it has been since Theon became Mayor when Haymitch was only a toddler, but it's harder, much more dangerous.

Turning off the fence would make the access a little less perilous.

"Hmmph," Haymitch grumbles as he stuffs a chunk of fudge into his mouth.

Daniel Undersee has a little more gumption than Haymitch would've expected. They exchange nods as Undersee heads out, and Matilda calls out a goodbye before the door jingles and drops closed behind him.

For a minute Haymitch watches him walk away, up until he disappears around the corner that leads to the Justice Building. He would've continued to stare, contemplate what the new magistrate, or whatever the hell his title is, has planned, but Matilda's cool hand brushes against his as she takes his glass to fill it up.

She fills it, flashes him a quick smile, then turns to go back to the counter.

He wants to scoop her up and carry her into the backroom, kiss her breathless until closing time then drag her back to his house. That's not a possibility though. The days are too short; by the time they would make it to his house he'd have to walk her back.

Getting up, he pulls out a handful of coins and drops them in her hand.

"You pay too much," Matilda frowns at her hand, heavy with the money.

Haymitch leans in a little. "I pay for the 'ambiance'."

She bites her lip, gives him a little smile as he winks and heads home.

#######

"Do you ever wonder what you'd do if you weren't a Victor?" Matilda asks one Wednesday.

Haymitch's mind flashes back to the night after their first kiss, when he'd gone to the cemetery. He'd thought about what his life would've been then and briskly pushed the thought away. A dream world isn't a comfort to him.

"I'd be in the mines," he tells her as he watches her spread fudge in the bottom of a pan. "Only option."

His mother had seen better things for him, but the reality was, Haymitch would've been a miner like his father and grandfather and all the men in his family before him. That's just the way it is.

Matilda frowns at her fudge, smoothes a corner out.

"Your mother said she always thought you'd be an engineer. I don't think she wanted you or Graeme in the mines." She looks up, her eyebrows knitted together. "What mother would though?"

None that Haymitch knows of. All his friends, men he doesn't talk to anymore except in passing, have mothers that wish their children weren't in the Capitol run mines, bound for certain death.

His mother had been certain that since Haymitch's grandfather, her father, had been in the narrow group of educated individuals in District Twelve, that Haymitch and Graeme might be able to follow in his footsteps. A fantasy if Haymitch ever heard one.

"Valencia hopes she has daughters," she sighs. "She says she doesn't think she could bear the thought of sending her children down into the mines."

Haymitch takes out his knife and cuts off a chunk of finished fudge, examines it for a second, there are pecans in it, before biting into it. He chews it thoughtfully for a minute before frowning at her.

"Valencia Burdock? Married Everdeen, right?" He asks.

She nods, pulls his hand to her mouth and takes a bite of his fudge. "She came to see me the other day. Told me they're trying to have a baby."

Why anyone would want to have a kid in their hellhole of a district, Haymitch doesn't know. Especially people from the Seam.

"I told her I don't know how she isn't pregnant already," Matilda says as she chews her bite. "You don't use condoms in the Seam, right?"

Haymitch chokes on his fudge.

Matilda swats him on the back while he tries to cough up a piece of pecan that's become lodged in his throat. When he finally gets it up, tears welling in his eyes, he looks at her.

"Who told you that?" He asks, still sputtering and coughing a little.

She shrugs. "People talk. When we were in school I would hear people talking. They didn't pay much attention to me."

He's aware of how little attention she was paid. He'd probably been one of the people that had mentioned less than sterling details of their private life while quiet little Matilda listened in.

His face warms at the thought.

"Maybe Val can't get pregnant," she frowns. "My father said it took her mother and father years to have her."

While he's glad to have moved on past embarrassing things Matilda learned from dirty boys during school, Haymitch doesn't feel any more comfortable discussing her friend's fertility problem.

Grunting, Haymitch picks up another piece of fudge, one without pecans this time, and takes a bite, hoping she'll move on.

"May always wanted children," she says as she takes her pan and puts it on the shelf to set. "She would've been a good mother, I think. I wouldn't be though."

Instantly, Haymitch wants to go back to discussing Valencia Everdeen's fertility issues.

"Who wants kids?" He grumbles. "Smelly and loud and take too much time."

She laughs. "Sounds like you."

He glares at her. "Haha."

Her lips twitch up. "I guess you do smell okay."

"I better," he crosses his arms. "I took a shower yesterday."

That gets another laugh out of her.

Eyes glancing around, she bites her lip. Taking a step, she bounces up on her toes and presses a quick kiss to his lips.

Before she can back away, Haymitch catches her around the waist, crushes her to his body.

"Are you doing a check to make sure I brushed?" He teases.

She kisses him again. "Yes. You passed."

His fingers begin poking and prodding her, tickling her. Her father is out, a recurring occurrence, and Haymitch wants to take a few minutes to take full advantage of the absence.

For a few minutes they wrestle around, kissing and nearly knocking over the freshly made candies. They only stop when the back door clicks, announcing her father's return.

Matilda is flush and breathless and her father asks her if she's feeling well as she fans herself with her hands.

Haymitch just gives her a sly smile and heads out, telling her quietly he'll see her Saturday.

#######

Haymitch doesn't know what Matilda tells her father about her weekend activities, about the fact that she vanishes on Fridays after work and doesn't reappear full time until Monday morning, and he's fairly certain he doesn't want to know. It's hard enough looking old Herschel in the eyes just imagining what wild story Matilda has told him. The old man has to have some idea of what's going on, he was young once, but he's also the father of a young woman, he might be harboring some weird delusions about her purity, and Haymitch isn't about to be the one to dispel those delusions.

Most Wednesdays he simply avoids Herschel. Matilda's father goes on errand runs at the same time and Haymitch plans his stop around those runs. It works out.

They'd accidently crossed paths once, an uncomfortable thirty seconds for both of them. Now Haymitch is certain Herschel is just as keen on avoiding him as the other way around.

"I suppose that is awkward," Undersee chuckles one day as he sits on the bench across from the sweet shop and talks to Haymitch, who is awaiting Herschel's exit. "Avoiding your girlfriend's father, when you can't admit your girlfriend is your girlfriend."

They hadn't told him, but Daniel Undersee is a sharp man. Unfortunately sharp in Haymitch's opinion.

He'd simply watched them, day in and day out since he'd arrived, pieced together what they were to each other, then dropped less than subtle hints to them, letting them know he'd caught on.

"Is it that obvious?" Matilda had asked, chewing her lip and her eyes searching the room for danger. Haymitch felt both relieved that she understood the danger having their relationship out in the open would put her in, but also a little saddened that she had to be so cautious about it. Relationships were supposed to be fun, not a source of anxiety.

Undersee had chuckled. "No, but my sister was a lot like you. When she got her first boyfriend she had some of the same 'tells', so to speak."

Haymitch had been a little worried about Undersee knowing. He works for the government and his allegiance is an unknown factor. He'd considered all his options, each as illegal and impossible as the next, before Undersee tried to calm his nerves.

"I'm not going to rat you out, Mr. Abernathy," he'd told him. "I've been in your position before."

Much as Haymitch doubted _that_, he'd nodded and resolved to keep an eye on Undersee and plot how to deal with him if and when the time came. At the moment he seems like nothing more than a nosy brother.

"I used to avoid my wife's father," he tells Haymitch as he takes a large spoonful of ice cream up to his mouth. "Elanor and I had gone to school together since we were children so I'd met him a thousand times, but the minute we started dating I began avoiding him like the plague. I just didn't want to get a lecture about hurting his baby girl."

Haymitch flops down beside him and crosses his arms, shoots him a quizzical look.

"Where is this wife of yours? I haven't met her," he asks after a minute.

Undersee sighs, begins picking at his ice cream with his spoon.

"She died, a few years ago," he tells him. "Gave birth to our son then died."

Since Haymitch hasn't met a sticky faced little Undersee, he guesses the son didn't make it past delivery either.

"Just another reason for me to not want to stay in Ten," he says with a sad smile. "Too many bad memories."

Haymitch watches as Undersee takes up another spoonful of ice cream and thoughtfully eats it. It hadn't occurred to him that Undersee had any social life before coming to Twelve. He's unnervingly quiet, an observer, and Haymitch had assumed he'd been a shut in bookworm back in his home District. Not the kind to marry or have children.

He doesn't press for more information, but he does store the newfound knowledge away for further inspection at a later time.

"Be careful with Matilda, Mr. Abernathy," he warns him as he polishes off the last of the ice cream. "She's…Remember I said she reminded me of my sister?"

Haymitch nods.

Undersee frowns, "Ester had a funny way about her. She was too sweet and more than a little naïve. Worse than Matilda. When she got her boyfriend they…didn't want her to get pregnant you see. Ten is very particular about _breeding_."

The way he says 'breeding', the fact that he calls it that, is more than a little ominous.

"Normally they 'fix' people like Ester when they're young, but the rate of infection and death is quite high and my parents had some sway, so Ester avoided that fate. When she started dating though, they didn't get an option. In the eyes of the council, Ester was defective and would only bring defective children into the world. There was only one choice for her." He sighs. "They did their surgery, she did poorly, as so many women do, and she died."

"They don't do that in Twelve," Haymitch points out. It's sick.

"No, but you know what happens to girls who get pregnant without being married in the Districts?"

That stops the conversation cold. Haymitch has no desire to discuss his as yet nonexistent sex life with Undersee, but he can't stop himself. He hasn't seen many unmarried pregnant women running around Twelve, and there's something in Undersee's tone that has him worried.

"What happens?" He finally asks, knowing he isn't going to like the answer.

Undersee reaches under the bench and sets the tiny bowl down, sits back up and sighs.

"Most of them are shipped off to Nine and Ten, where there is a desperate need for workers. Brought about by our insistence on spaying and neutering our own citizens, no doubt. The baby is born in one of those Districts and so is its citizen. The mother can either choose to stay or leave the child to the District Home." He cuts Haymitch a look. "Girls like Matilda, like my sister if she'd had the chance, that have children, are 'fixed' after the birth so that they don't have any more. Then the children are watched very carefully, 'fixed' at the first, slightest, sign that they're anything but perfectly normal."

It's a death sentence, though Undersee doesn't say as much. If Matilda were to be shipped off to Nine or Ten, she'd be sterilized and more than likely wouldn't survive the recovery.

Nodding, Haymitch swallows down a lump.

He doesn't ask any more questions, just slumps back in the bench and watches for Herschel to leave.

#######

"You snore," Matilda tells him when she wakes him one morning with the smell of bacon and biscuits.

Haymitch shrugs. Laurel had told him that a few times, kicked him out of bed when it started annoying her.

"You got a problem with that?" He asks, half joking. It doesn't matter if she does, there's nothing he can do about it.

Matilda's nose wrinkles up and her pale eyebrows scrunch together. Then a little smile forms on her face. "No."

"Why is that funny?" He asks her as he comes up behind her and wraps his arms around her middle, pressing her to his stomach.

She bites her lip, eyes cut up to him and back to the pan in front of her. Finally, she tilts her head back, kisses the underside of his chin. "It's my secret."

He frowns. She still doesn't make sense sometimes. "What's your secret?"

Spinning around in his arms and wrapping hers around his middle, she rests her chin in his chest and grins up at him. "That you snore."

His expression must tell her he doesn't get what she's saying, so she pops up on her toes and presses a kiss to his lips.

"I'm one of only a few that know you snore."

Why that's important to her, possessing such a trivial bit of knowledge, Haymitch doesn't know. It seems to make her happy though, and that's one of the only things in his life he has any real control over.

#######

The last Saturday before the Games, before he has to see Mingus and Verve again and go back to the Capitol, he wakes with something warm on his back.

He almost falls out of bed he rolls away from it so fast. The only thing that saves him is a cool little hand reaching out and tugging him back.

"Be careful, Haymitch."

Rubbing his face and the sleep from his eyes, he doesn't say anything. The room is still dark, only the smallest bit of sunlight is crawling in through the bottommost part of the shades. He glances at the clock on his bedside table and realizes it's almost three full hours before his surprise bedmate should be here.

"'Tilda, what're you doing here?"

She tilts her head. "It's Saturday."

The way she says it almost makes him laugh. It's as though she's pointing out the most obvious thing in the world.

"It's too early." He jabs his finger at the clock. "Did you walk up in the dark?"

Instead of answering, she flops over in his bed, gives him a sleepy smile.

"You _did_ didn't you?" Damned crazy woman.

"You leave soon," she explains as she picks at a hole in his sheets. "I wanted to spend a little extra time with you."

Her lower lip puckers out and he knows she's playing him, but she's _good_ at it.

Running his hands through his hair, he sighs. He reaches out and brushes a few loose strands of her hair from her face, traces a line along her cheek.

She grabs his hand, pulls him to her.

He puts up a tiny amount of resistance, just to satisfy the small part of his mind that continues to tell him what a mistake he's making, before dropping down beside her. She curls into him, presses her body tightly to his.

"You stink, Haymitch," she tells him. He can almost see her nose wrinkling up.

"I just wanna give my prep team something to do," he tells her as he chuckles.

They stay in the bed for several hours.

Matilda makes it hard to leave it. She cuddles, wraps her arms and legs around him and runs her fingers through his hair until he's certain it's a wild mess. She works him onto his back, crawls on his stomach, kisses him almost to the point of no return.

"Breakfast," he grunts as he pulls her from the bed and down the stairs.

He pushes her into a chair and starts digging through the cabinets, snatching out bowls and flour before going to the icebox and finding the milk. Matilda has kept him stocked since she started coming out, and she has impeccable order. A place for everything and everything in its place.

When he turns to ask her if she wants her eggs scrambled or sunny-side up she's slumped. Her eyes are fixed on the ground, she has her hands clasped, dangling between her knees.

"You need a pick-me up, sweetheart?" He pulls a bottle of white liquor from the topmost shelf and shakes it at her.

He expects her to perk up, grin at him or shoot him a disgusted look at the offer.

She doesn't though. Her eyes stay fixed on the ground, and finally she sighs.

"No one would know," she whispers. Her eyes flutter up then back down. "I wouldn't say anything."

It takes him a minute to process what she's said, and even then it doesn't make any sense. He sets his liquor down, crosses his arms and leans back on the cabinet. "What?"

She sits back in the seat but keeps her eyes down. "I've been good about keeping quiet. No one knows we're together. No one knows you're with 'Mad Mati'."

Haymitch lets his arms drop, he's certain his mouth is dropped down as well.

He strides across the kitchen, pulls her to her feet and wraps her in a bone crushing hug. "Is that what you thought?"

She nods into his chest and he feels his shirt getting wet from silent tears.

"Matilda." He takes her by the shoulder, makes her look at him. "I'm not embarrassed by you, understand?"

For a minute she doesn't say anything, just stares vacantly through him. Then she sighs. "You should be."

Making a frustrated noise he takes her by the hand, pulls her into the living room. He falls onto the couch and tugs her to his lap, wrapping his arms around her middle and resting his chin on her shoulder.

"If either one of us should be embarrassed it should be you." He tightens his arms around her stomach. "I'm a drunk. A complete mess."

"And you smell," she adds quietly.

"Yeah," he grunts. "And I smell."

A little smile tries to fight its way onto her face. Before he can stop her she's spun around, wrapped her legs around him. "You don't care that I'm 'Mad Mati'?"

His hands run up her skirt, massaging the pale skin underneath as he scowls. "You aren't 'Mad Mati'. You're my 'Tilda."

The smile finally breaks through on her face and she presses her body closer to his. "You wouldn't mind people knowing about us?"

That brings the moment to an abrupt halt.

His wandering hands rise up, settle on her shoulders. "We need to talk."

It's been a long time coming.

#######

They spend the rest of the day curled up on the couch.

Matilda understands every word he tells her. Every painful, ugly word.

He tells her what had really happened with Laurel and what happened with his mother and Graeme. He tells her about Wiress and her warning, about how he's putting her in danger.

At any minute the Capitol could decide he needs to suffer more. He hopes they don't, but he knows the reality is that they could.

On a whim, out of boredom or simple cruelty, those nameless faceless beings that he'd snubbed by refusing to be a bought and sold puppet could lash out. They could take another pound of flesh from him by hurting her.

"Oh, Haymitch," she sighs his name as she combs her fingers through his hair.

"I shouldn't've let you get yourself into this," he whispers.

She kisses down his neck, up again to his mouth before resting her forehead against his. "You couldn't have stopped me. I'm very persuasive."

Haymitch can only grunt his agreement.

Her kisses begin again, slower, agonizingly slow. He knows they're about to tumble over the edge, Matilda won't let him pull them back this time.

And for the first time, he doesn't care.

#######

Haymitch gets through the Games by remembering waking tangled in Matilda's arms and legs, his face buried in her hair. It's a vivid memory, which he's grateful for. Not even his drinking dulls the scent of her skin from his memory.

He doesn't feel like he acts any differently than he had. There's no change in his pattern. He gets to the Capitol, passes out, drinks, passes out, watches his Tributes die, drinks…

Chaff notices something though.

"What?" Haymitch asks him irritably as he downs one of his numberless drinks. They don't normally talk. They aren't friends, not really, but Chaff is tolerable compared to the others, so Haymitch doesn't mind when he occasionally takes up the seat next to him at the bar.

"You do something with your hair?" Chaff squints through the smoke and haze of the bar.

"Yeah," Haymitch answers. "Washed it."

Chaff takes another long drink, shakes his head. "No, that ain't it."

He stares at him through several more drinks, wracking his brain for the perceived but unseen difference. Finally, he sighs, shakes his head and turns back to the bar.

"You just couldn't control your libido, could you Haymitch?"

Both men turn on their stools.

"I seem to be controlling it just fine at the moment, sweetheart." Haymitch spins his stool back to the bar and continues drinking.

"He put you up and not call the next day, Wiress?" Chaff asks.

Out the corner of his eye, Haymitch sees Chaff stand and walk, a little less than steadily, towards Wiress.

"You know, you should set your sights higher." He takes her hand and rubs it, grins at her drunkenly.

Wiress rolls her eyes. "Take a walk, Chaff. I have things to discuss with Haymitch."

If he weren't feeling so generous, Haymitch would get up, stumble away and make her chase him all the way back to the Training Center. His mood is too good though, so he stays on his stool as she continues to shake Chaff off.

It takes her a good five minutes, and a couple of times he thinks she might just give up and catch him later. Finally though, she threatens to break his remaining hand with a pair of pliers and he backs off, whistling lowly at her as he disappears onto the dance floor.

She settles onto Chaff's vacant seat, leans her elbow onto the sticky bar and smiles coolly.

"And how are you today, Haymitch?"

He takes a handful of peanuts and begins munching loudly, letting a few sputter out and bounce on the bar. "Better before you showed up."

Wiress chuckles. "I get that quite often."

"Can't imagine why," he mumbles, not even turning to her.

Her hand reaches out, grabs the little bowl of peanuts and pulls it from his reach.

"I'm trying to have a conversation with you, Haymitch. You could at least do me the courtesy of looking at me."

Instead of turning to her, he picks up his drink, downs it in one go, letting a healthy portion dribble out the sides of his mouth just to annoy her.

"You're a pig, you know that?"

He can see the annoyance building in her and he gets a weird kind of satisfaction from it. Wiress is too used to people listening to her, letting her tell them what and how and when things are going to happen, and denying her his undivided attention, treating her as not even worthy of manners, is a slap in the face.

Her lip curls up. "What does that little trollop see in you?"

That gets him to give her his attention.

Wiress has picked up one of the discarded glasses, it running a finger over the lip. "Or maybe she doesn't see anything. They do call her 'Mad Mati', don't they? Maybe you've tripped her up somehow. She's clearly not that bright, it wouldn't be that hard. Do you have some kind of fetish for stu-"

Haymitch slings his drink at her head. It only misses because she ducks.

Wiress catches him by the wrist and knocks his stool out from under him with her leg, sending him flat on his back on the stick floor.

"You fu-"

Her hand clamps over his mouth as she gives him a talk-and-I-snap-your-neck look then she jerks her head, silently telling him to follow her. Much as he doesn't want to, he knows he has no choice.

Grumbling and calling her every foul name he can come up with, Haymitch rolls himself over and gets up. He clomps after her as she leads him to a back hall.

The smoke and the stink of the bar can't penetrate the hall, even the music dulls in the vacuum of the blackened back room. It's so dark, so muted, that Haymitch almost runs into Wiress when she stops in front of him.

"I'm sorry," she says. "I just need you to listen to me."

"Well you have my attention," he snaps.

She recoils, just slightly, crosses her arms and fixes her eyes on the ground and sighs.

"Believe it or not I'm trying to help you."

He shoots her a look that tells her he's firmly on the 'or not' side and she takes a deep breath.

"You need to remember who the enemy is, Haymitch."

"I know who the enemy is," he tells her. "The enemy is anyone trying to kill me. Including you."

"You've got quite the list then, don't you?" Her frown deepens. "Especially if you include people who are so desperately trying to _help_you on your list of enemies."

"_Help me?_" Haymitch laughs coolly. "How exactly are you trying to help me, Wiress?"

Her fingers press into her temples.

"By warning you. By letting you know you are putting yourself into a very precarious position." Her eyes, blackened in the dark hall open, look at him. "You are in a unique position among us. You have no one you need to protect. It's a gift. At a great cost, I'll admit, but you are where you are so you might as well use it."

"A gift?" He rolls his eyes. "You tell some bastard in the government how to put the screws to me by killing my family and my girlfriend and you think you've given me a gift?"

A look of distaste forms on her face. "I'm not proud of it. You know that. I have people I'm trying to protect too though, and…"

Her eyes close; she reaches up and presses her fingers to them. Haymitch frowns at her as he waits for whatever is so damned important that she had to interrupt his drinking to tell him.

"I don't enjoy what I do," she finally says. "I hate myself for it. It isn't a choice though. I feel badly for what happened to you, but remember, I warned you. Just like I'm warning you now." Her eyes open again, focus on Haymitch's. "This is my warning Haymitch: No matter how badly I feel about what happened to your family. If you ignore my warning again, if you continue on this path with this girl and the ever watchful eye of the Capitol turns back to you for bloody amusement, make no mistake, I will be who they come to. If they ask me I will tell them how to hurt you, because I have a family too."

Wiress isn't the enemy, but she works for them. Haymitch knows that, he's known that for years. He might hate her, just a little, for the chill in her demeanor and the fact that she saves her loved ones with the blood of other Victors', but he at least understands her.

She doesn't understand him though.

"You didn't free me," he finally says, lowly, almost a growl. "You trapped me. I'm still in a prison, just like you and the others, it just looks different."

She's created a world of isolation for him. If she'd have just told whichever of Chaff's buddies set the fire or set the snake on Laurel that Haymitch was a tough egg to crack, that the only thing left to do to him was kill him, that would've been a gift. That would've freed him.

"It isn't living, what I've been doing," he tells her as he runs his hand through his already disheveled hair. "I've been existing. I _need_her. I can't go backwards. They have plenty of other toys, they don't need me."

If Wiress had a heart Haymitch would say he was shattering it.

Her hand reaches out as if to pat his shoulder, but it drops, falls back to her side.

"You could be so much more, Haymitch. You could be one of us," her eyes shimmer.

"I don't want to be one of you. I'm not strong enough to do what you do," he chuckles. It sounds a little watery to his ears.

Something falls to the floor, clatters at his feet, and he reaches down and picks it up, hands it back to Wiress. It's a pen, not extraordinary, but when Wiress takes it back, clicks the top a few times, he knows it's more than it seems.

"We aren't just what you see." Her eyes stay on her pen. "We're more."

They both fall silent after that, both staring at the pen gripped in her hand. Then her gaze rises.

"Be careful. That's all I can tell you then." She gives him a wan smile. "I hope they have forgotten you, or at least don't care much what you do, because you're taking a path I can't help you on."

Haymitch doesn't say anything, just nods.

He's never liked having someone else moving his piece anyway.


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine

**Light Yet To Be Found, pt 6**

AN: As always, thanks to FortuneFaded2012 for the beta.

#######

Haymitch spends the rest of the Games rolling Wiress' warning over in his head. He ponders it as he watches the girl from Five win. She's not particularly attractive, but she is brutal, and he wonders if she'll end up with Brutus or Wiress.

His money would be on Brutus. While the girl is smart, she isn't quite up to Wiress and Beetee's standards. Plus she has a bit of a mean look.

"She's bound for terrible things," Coraline Lons says as she takes a sip of her beer. "I hope she gets assigned to one of the smaller Districts."

"Maybe she'll get put on One and Two," Shelly shrugs, takes a shot.

Normally Haymitch avoids them, the bought and sold, but after talking with Wiress he feels a draw. He takes up a seat at their table, next to Chaff who'd decided to chat up Coraline, and orders a round. They don't say anything, so he assumes they don't have a problem with him.

Their chatter dies with his appearance, though they may simply all be slipping into a stupor. He isn't sure.

Finally, Shelly, with her tanned skin and her too vibrantly blonde hair, shoots him a look.

"What bring you to our table, Haymitch?" Her pale eyebrows arch up.

He tries to imagine her as Matilda, dolled up and made out to be some Capitolite's fantasy. The thought nauseates him, but for some reason he thinks that would be her future if he continues down the path he's on with her. They've already tried crushing him with killing the ones he loves, the next step would be to rip his heart out and stomp it in front of him.

"Just thought I'd socialize a bit is all," he tells her as he takes his glass to his lips. "Problem with that?"

"The more the merrier," Coraline tells him, though she looks a little wary.

They sit for a few more minutes, all silently sipping their drinks.

"Table always this chatty or are you all making an effort for me?" He finally asks.

Coraline and Shelly exchange a look, silent communication sowed over years of shared misery. They seem to decide on talking, because Coraline puts her forearms on the table and settles her gaze on Haymitch.

"What do you want to talk about Haymitch? Since you're the guest."

He doesn't want to be the guest. All he wants is to be part of the pack. Being around Matilda, having human contact has made him crave more. Despite Wiress' insistence that he'd do well with she and her bunch, Haymitch wonders if maybe the Capitol bastards had it right. He needs to know if he's just drunk or if he'd have survived among Shelly and her group. He also needs to know _why_ her group.

"What made you think I'd be one of you?" He finally asks. It's the question that's been hanging on his lips since the end of his Victory Tour.

Shelly taps the side of her glass with her well manicured nail, presses her lips into a thin line. After what feels to be an eternity, the smoke of the bar is starting to sting his eyes and the blaring music is giving him a headache, Shelly sighs.

"You were very handsome," she answers.

"Were?" He chuckles. "I fix that little problem?"

Her light eye dancing in the dull lighting of the bar as she looks him over. A little smirk forms on her lips. "Not entirely."

This is one of the times he sincerely wishes he could pull out a picture of Matilda and tell people he's taken. Matilda might not be as glamorous as Shelly, not wear make-up or glittering dresses or even shoes, but there's something about the effortlessness of her look that makes her that much more appealing.

Haymitch gives Shelly a slight scowl. As much as that had to have been a part of it, having a look that could be molded into something the Capitol could turn into a commodity, Haymitch knows there has to be more. Being pretty isn't the only thing that guarantees a spot with them. He's watched for seven years. There's more to it.

"What else?" He prods.

Chaff, who'd been quietly drinking beside Haymitch, shakes his head. "You don't want to know."

"I do," Haymitch counters, keeping his eyes on Shelly. "I need to know."

Shelly shakes her head, looks down at her glass. She isn't going to answer, he can already sense that.

Coraline takes a deep breath.

"Being attractive is a large part of it, you know that, but not the only part." She takes a drink of her beer, grimaces with a hiss and puts the bottle down. "Do you have any guesses what the other part is?"

If he had any he wouldn't be asking her. He has guesses, conjectures, but nothing solid, nothing substantial. He wants the reason he was picked for two groups. It'll put his mind at ease if he knows that the people who were so desperate to place him with the likes of Shelly and Coraline were just as eager to rope him in with Wiress and Beetee.

Turning down Shelly had been the point that had killed his brother and mother, and he needs to know if he's still in as much danger as Wiress believes or if the people that had decided he needed further crushing are still toying with making his life hell. He needs to know if Shelly and her group are the harshest punishment that can be doled out or if he's simply grasping at straws, reading too much into the bizarre hierarchy of the Victors.

Haymitch shakes his head, keeps his eyes steady on Coraline.

Her mouth turns up sadly, eyes soften on him.

"Oh, Haymitch, we're where they put the Victors they want to break."

For a minute he just stares at her, process her words. It's what he'd expected. Being a killer or weaving a web around other Victors is one thing, but selling a person, using them like District Ten's cattle is the ultimate humiliation. Of course they would've wanted to reserve that kind of punishment for Haymitch.

"You're strong willed, smart, and they wanted to break you. Turning you into one of us was the most useful way, the most common way, but what they did was just as effective." She picks a peanut out of the little bowl at the center of the table and pops it in her mouth. "You were an example. Step out of line, use our toys against us, refuse to bow to our power, and we will take our revenge, however we can."

He suddenly wonders if all the Victors since his Game have been shown his picture as a warning, told his story, learned his lesson, because he hasn't heard of any of them refusing the jobs they were assigned.

At least he's been useful as a painful lesson for others, if nothing else, he thinks as he finishes off his drink.

#######

For the entire ride home he thinks about the girl from Five. He can't even remember her name, but he remembers her skill with the knife, how she slit the throats of so many of her opponents before vanishing for the rest of the Game. She's dangerous, just like all of Brutus' little band of murderers.

Haymitch thinks about Matilda, about all the horrible things they could do to her. She wouldn't survive, and he thinks that might be for the best. He's heard about the things done to some of the families of Victors and the Matilda that would come out on the other side wouldn't be someone he'd recognize. She wouldn't be someone _she_would recognize. Haymitch has gotten off easy by comparison, with simply having his family taken instead of destroyed.

Wiress would probably want a note of thanks for that, but she won't get one.

There are some things you don't thank a person for, and providing the lesser of evils to a condemned person is one of them.

When the train rolls to a stop in Twelve Haymitch has almost convinced himself to let Matilda go. He's a danger to her, going to the Capitol had refreshed that reality in his mind and he needs to act before the apparent safety of Twelve lulls him back into a false sense of security.

He'll go in the morning, that's what he tells himself. He'll go to the sweet shop and break things off with Matilda. She'll be hurt, probably think he used her, but a broken heart is better than a dead body, and even better than a dead soul.

Heavy hearted, he ambles back to the Victors' Village, towing what little luggage he had, mostly drinks he'd pilfered away, behind him.

The house is lit when he first catches sight of it. From a distance he thinks it's on fire and starts running. It isn't until he's a little closer that he realizes it's only burning with light. Windows are ablaze, curtains still open and he hears faint music playing, seeping out the cracks to the outside. It's the last thing he expected.

At first he thinks someone has broken in and started a party. It's never happened, but some of the kids aren't that bright, they might even not realize they'd broken into the only occupied house in the Village. That would be his luck.

Pulling out his knife, Haymitch stomps up the back steps to the door and roughly swings it open, expecting to scare the pants off a bunch of dumb as dirt kids.

"What're y-"

He drops his hand, knife hanging loosely from his fingers as he finds the intruder at his stove.

Matilda beams at him, runs at him and throws her arms around his neck. "You're home!"

Haymitch stands stunned for a minute before responding, slowly wrapping his arms around her and letting his hands settle on her back. He'd completely forgotten about her having a key to his house.

Before he can stop himself, he's bent down, pressed his face into her flyaway hair and started filling his lungs with her candy scent. It's the closest thing to the smell of home he's had in seven years.

She pulls back and pops up on her toes, begins pressing little kisses to his scruffy neck and jaw.

"Matilda," he stops her. Breaking up with her will be damn near impossible if she keeps it up. "Why are you here so late?"

One of her arms drops and swings out to the room. "I was trying to make you a welcome home cake, but I burnt it a little. Then I picked up some, dusted, swept,-"

She begins telling him all the improvements she's made to his house in his absence. Reframing the pictures on his mantle, changing all the sheets on each bed, painting the wall where he'd scraped a line during a drunken fall, _finally_cleaning his bathroom…

"I'm going to find you a new mirror," she tells him as she tries to tug him out of the room to show him. "Maybe you can take me to the Hob. Surely there's one there that's reasonably priced, don't you think?"

Her nose wrinkles up as she begins recounting the trials and tribulations she encountered over the days he's been gone, eyes lighting up as she talks about one of the kids that came into the sweet shop and then drooping when she talks about how the little boy had dropped his lollypop.

"I gave him a new one. His face just lit up," she sighs. "He was from the Seam, I think. Probably what your son would look like."

Haymitch grunts at that. He doesn't want to discuss children with her at the moment, or any moment actually.

Matilda animatedly moves her face, makes small gestures with her hands as she talks about watching the Games this year, about her headaches and how she'd focused on her talks with him to get her through the bad times.

Finally, Haymitch grabs her, pulls her to him and buries his face in her hair again, inhales the scent of sugar from her skin.

It hadn't taken long for Twelve to squash his resolve to break up with Matilda for her own good. He just can't. As much as he needs to, he can't. She's the only bright spot in his life, and he can't give her up.

#######

Haymitch wakes with Matilda nuzzled into his chest. Her pale hair is wild, rumpled and splayed around her head and up under Haymitch's chin. Her skin is soft against his and he hopes she doesn't bruise easily. She must shave, because her legs are smooth where they twine with his. He vaguely wonders if men in Town shave or if that's strictly a girl thing. He certainly isn't about to start that nonsense, no matter how sweetly Matilda might ask.

It's the most comfortable he's been when not drunk in ages. The heat from her body is like a balm to his aching muscles and he scoots a little closer to her, closing the breath of space between them. She makes a small noise, a breathy sound in her throat at the increased contact, and Haymitch smiles at it.

His fingers begin tracing small circles on the pale skin on her hip and a tiny smile forms on her lips as her eyes flicker open for a moment before settling closed again.

"G'morning, Haymitch."

He rolls over, pinning her between his body and the mattress. "Morning, 'Tilda."

She cranes up, begins kissing him down his throat and to his chest, stopping to sigh after a few minutes.

"I missed you," she whispers, her eyes opening and barely focusing on him in the dim sunlight filtering through the curtains.

Haymitch simply grunts, begins kissing a trail down her neck ending between her breasts.

Matilda giggles. "You should shave."

He rubs his prickly cheek against her sternum. "Oh? That bothering you?"

Her giggles increase. "It tickles."

While she squirms pleasantly under him, Haymitch begins poking her sides, squeezing her, eliciting more breathy laughter.

It's the closest thing to music he's heard in years.

#######

She tries to teach him to dance, during one of her weekends, which is a miserable failure.

Matilda is light on her feet, a wisp in the wind, but Haymitch has lead feet, stomps and trips her up at every turn.

Not that she cares. The fact that he's attempting for her sake is all she's concerned with. She pushes all the furniture out of the middle and rolls up the worn rug, clearing the center of the room of obstacles.

The music is scratchy on the ancient looking radio. Haymitch had never even used it before Matilda came around. He had little use for music, it was noise that banged in his head and made hangovers that much less bearable. She loved it though, skipped through the channels until she found one with a song Haymitch had never heard before. They were good, not the strange noise that always got played in the bars in the Capitol or the twangy music of the Seam. She called it jazz, told him her father listened to it all the time.

"Don't you dance in the Capitol?" She asks as she takes his hand and tries to tow him around the living room.

"Not really," he mutters as he tries not to step on her feet.

That only seems to make her laugh, giggle into his chest. She tightens her arm around his middle and rests her head on his chest, slows the dance down so that all they're really doing is turning in place as a slower tune comes over the waves.

Haymitch lets his hands rest on her back, one on the smallest part, keeping her firmly against him, and the other at the nape of her neck, toying with the soft furls of her hair that have escaped her messy ponytail.

"My dad always told me I would dance on my wedding day," she tells him.

He isn't sure if she's fishing or just being nostalgic. He doesn't want to tempt her with something that will never happen, but he can't stop himself from asking her more about it.

"Never been to a wedding in Town. They play this music?"

She tilts her head up and looks at him. "Not normally, but they would at our wedding."

Hearing her say 'our wedding' should make him put an end to the dance, tell her to go home, she's toying with an impossibility. Instead, he just chuckles.

"Oh? What else would there be at our wedding?"

Her smile widens.

"Candy. Lots of candy." She makes him swing her out, twirl her back in. "Strawberry ice cream. Cheesy tomato bread for the toasting. And tons of flowers. I'd even wear them in my hair."

He has no doubt that she would. Haymitch would make sure she had as many flowers as she wanted.

"Lilacs?" He asks. She loved the smell of the wild lilac he brought into the house for her to decorate with.

She nods, bites her lip.

"And tulips."

He chuckles and spins her again. "Why tulips?"

"Because," she's breathless when he twirls her back into his arms, "my father has a book. It tells what each flower means and each color. Tulips mean 'perfect love'. They're my favorite."

While he hardly thinks what they have is 'perfect love' if tulips are what she likes best then tulips would be what she'd get. If they could get married, have a wedding, which they can't.

"And what color would they be?"

She smiles. "Red of course."

"I like yellow," Haymitch tells her. "See? We could never get married. We'd never agree on a color."

Matilda just laughs. "Well no, not if you pick yellow tulips. Yellow tulips mean 'hopeless love'. Not a good choice for a wedding."

He almost tells her that's just as well, they'll never have a wedding, but he hopes she'll know that. Flowers and candy and toastings aren't in their future.

Her arms wrap around him and she buries her face in his chest.

"Someday, though, maybe we could agree on flowers and colors, right Haymitch?"

She looks up at him with her always hazy eyes, a hopeful look etched in her features, and Haymitch can't steal that hope from her.

"Sure, 'Tilda, someday."

It's a lie, but it makes her happy, and that's all that matters to him in that moment.

If there were a way to freeze time, Haymitch would do it. Dancing with Matilda in his unarranged living room is the closest he'll get to peace, and he knows it. Even if there will never be a wedding dance in their future.

#######

Matilda is covered from head to toe in soil from digging in his garden. She'd planted it while he was away, partly to avoid anymore arguing with him over it and partly to take her mind off the massacre taking place on the television.

"Someone always has the Games on in Town," she tells him, eyes fixed on the ground as she explains herself. "Even if I'm in our garden I can still hear things."

So she'd apparently made his house her sanctuary, turning up the soil in the plot of land she'd picked out months earlier and transplanting some of the little plants from she and her father's tiny garden.

Much as he tries to be mad with her, gives her a stern glare and tells her she's just making a mud hole, when she bats her eyelashes at him, peers up at him with her hazy blue eyes, he can't stay angry.

"Fine," he grumbles. "You're going to be the one taking care of this crap though."

She throws her arms around him, pinning his arms to his sides and beams up at him, her chin pressing into his sternum. "You'll love it. I promise."

Somehow she manages to grow strawberries, tiny little things, not like the enormous juicy berries Haymitch buys her at the Hob, but they still give the ice cream she constantly makes, a new canister every weekend, a good amount of flavor. Haymitch likes the tiny cherry tomatoes, picks them by the handful as soon as they're ripened and eats them right off the vine.

He won't admit it, but he enjoys watching her weed. She's wild, throwing dirt behind her as she plucks up the scattered weeds that grow in her absence. For almost an hour she works, cleaning between the rows and getting each in perfect lines.

She's always a mess after, sweaty and dirty, always insists on taking a shower after, which Haymitch never argues about. There's a garden tub in the master bedroom that he's never had much use for until Matilda tumbled into his life.

"I can make vegetable soup," she tells him as she towels her hair dry. She's wearing one of his fancy button up shirts from the Capitol. It's dark in color, black or a funny deep blue, with scratched silver buttons. He thinks she wears it better than he ever could.

"Sounds good," he answers as he digs around in one of his drawers for some pants. Everytime Matilda reorganizes things he loses the damn things.

After watching him struggle with holding his towel on and trying to find his missing pants, Matilda finally comes over and opens a drawer, pulls out a pair and hands it to him.

"Or maybe leek soup?" She asks as she runs her finger over the top of the dresser. Her finger comes away with a fine layer of dust on it and Haymitch instantly knows she'll be up to clean as soon as the soup is on.

He snatches his pants away and shrugs.

"Whatever you like, sweetheart." He shoots her a look. "And stop rearranging the drawers. I can't find a damn thing in here."

Haymitch knows she won't listen. In a few weeks she'll have everything moved again. She doesn't take him seriously when he grumbles at her anymore, just smiles and carries on.

They finally end up in the kitchen, Matilda decides on a summer squash soup, and Haymitch collapses into a chair.

It's one of his favorite lazy things to do: watch Matilda cook.

She floats around the kitchen, snatching up bowls and utensils, gathering the ingredients she needs before staring at them all intensely. Haymitch is glad the meal doesn't involve meat. Matilda had a fit the last time she'd tried to tenderize a small cut from the butcher and Haymitch had to take over the cooking for that night.

He'd never say she's as good as his mother in the kitchen, that's a tough act to follow, but Matilda certainly puts in the effort. Despite routinely over and undercooking things, nearly setting a fire or two, Haymitch doesn't think he'd rather eat anyone else's questionable cooking.

Propping his elbow against the table he lets his eyes trail up and down her as she carefully cuts up her squash. His shirt is hitting her at mid-thigh, ghosting up and down as she works. She's humming, Haymitch doesn't recognize the tune, but he still finds his mind following along, memorizing it and setting it with the image of Matilda toiling away in his kitchen.

He wonders, idly, if this is what being married would be like. It's a stupid thought. Being married is a nonexistent possibility for him and fantasizing about it won't do him any good. He can't stop himself though.

It could only happen if the Games hadn't happened, but that nullified his daydream quickly. Winning the Game, being in the Game, is the only reason Matilda is in his life. Pretending that even if he hadn't won the Games, never been chosen, that Matilda and he would've still found their way to each other, Haymitch imagines they would live in the Seam.

There would be a garden in the front yard. Probably fading flowers planted by the steps leading to the door. Maybe the roof would've leaked, it had in his old house.

He'd come home from the mines, dirty and tired, each and every night to her cooking, just like she is now. The house would be spotless; he can't imagine Matilda letting living in the Seam lower her standards of cleanliness. He can even picture a tiny cracked vase in the middle of her scrubbed wooden table with wildflowers Haymitch would've picked for her on his way home.

Maybe there would've been kids, but he doesn't see himself as a particularly paternal type. He hopes they would've looked like her though. His mother's father had been blonde, so it wasn't out of the realm of possibility.

It's a nice dream, imagining a simple life with her, one where he isn't constantly putting her at risk.

All it will ever be is a dream though.

She must sense the downturn in his mood because she leaves the counter and comes to him, sits on his lap and begins running her hands through his hair.

"Is something wrong?"

Her eyes are wide with worry and he forces a smile to try and lift her features.

"Just day dreaming," he tells her.

His half-truth doesn't convince her though, and she sighs.

"Tell me."

He debates. Telling her will only put useless thoughts in her head. Painful hopes and useless wishes.

She pokes him in the stomach. "Tell me."

"Violent woman," he grumbles as he wraps his arms around her. He settles his chin on her shoulder. "I was trying to imagine you living in the Seam."

She tilts her head, considers his thought and frowns.

"You don't think I'd have made it, do you?"

His hands begin massaging her hip and he shoots her a hard look.

"Not like that." He sighs. "I was just thinking about how we'd be. Our house. How different it would be."

She twists, wraps her legs around him and presses her forehead to his.

"As long as we'd both be there, it would be perfect," she whispers as she presses a kiss to the side of his mouth.

He almost lets her get him carried away, she has a particular gift for that, but Haymitch catches a whiff of something burning and looks to the strove.

"'Tilda, the soup," he grunts.

Grimacing, Matilda jumps up and runs to the stove, scolding herself for letting their dinner burn over. It's ruined and she knows it, turns back to Haymitch with an apologetic smile.

"Oops."

#######

"Keep your eyes closed," Matilda tells him as she leads him by the hand through his house.

She's been working on a project in the kitchen all day, refusing him entrance even to get his drinks from the fridge.

"I'm making you a surprise," she told him each time he tried to sneak in.

He'd crane his neck over her and try to spot what she was working so hard on. So far he'd worked out she was baking something, which was a little worrying, but beyond that he didn't have any idea what she was doing.

Maneuvering him through the kitchen entryway and into a chair, she continues to warn him against opening his eyes.

For a minute he hears her gliding around, moving things around him and setting something down. Finally she sighs.

"Okay, open your eyes."

When he does, he finds himself sitting in front of a blazing mess of candles. Matilda has meticulously placed them on a lumpy looking cake with thick, chocolaty icing. She's spelled out 'Happy Birthday Haymitch!' in glass candy across the top.

Her hands are grasped in front of her, a hopeful little expression on her face.

"Happy birthday, Haymitch!"

He just stares at it for a minute. It's been years since he's had a birthday, since before his Victory Tour, when his mother and Graeme were still alive. He's never had a birthday cake, just a handful of candies, strangely enough from Matilda's father's shop, once when he'd turned twelve.

When he doesn't respond she begins chewing her lip.

"It's not as pretty as one of Mr. Mellark's, but I thought…" She sighs. "I didn't want to draw attention to things. I didn't want to upset you."

She looks beside herself, worried he doesn't like the cake she's worked so hard on.

Haymitch takes her hand, gives it a squeeze before bringing her knuckles to his lips and giving them a scratchy kiss.

"I love it."

A timid smile slowly forms on her face, fights its way up to her eyes. She squints at him. "Really?"

Haymitch reaches out, tugs her to his lap and presses a kiss into her cheek.

"Really."

Matilda squeals as Haymitch hoists her up, spins her around until he can just barely stand straight.

Quickly blowing the candles out, Haymitch catches Matilda around the waist and drags her out of the kitchen, up the stairs and to the bedroom. The cake can wait.


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine

Little Warning: There's talk of a sensitive subject to people in this chapter, only a mention, but this isn't a happy story and they're in Panem. It is a desperate place and dark things are bound to brought up. Sorry.

**Light Yet To Be Found, pt 7**

AN: As always, thanks to FortuneFaded2012 for the beta.

#######

"I'm just so tired," Matilda tells him through a yawn.

She's barely finished clearing out the garden, preparing it for the fall plants, when she wanders out of the plot and flops down on the back steps.

Haymitch stands, stretches his hunched back, then follows after her, collapsing beside her. "You sick?"

He puts a dirt covered hand to her head and she pulls back, nose wrinkled in annoyance.

"I'm not sick, Haymitch. I'm just tired."

Not that he doesn't trust her to know her own body, but she's been punyfor a couple of weeks. He doesn't trust the doctors in Town, especially since they'd been so unhelpful with her headaches, but surely they could give her something to pep her up.

Slowly, Haymitch wraps his arm around her shoulders, pulls her to his side and rests his cheek against her slightly sweaty hair.

Her headaches have come back. Not as bad as before, but dull and constant.

They started after Whelms, the ancient Head Peacekeeper, held a large public whipping. Ten men, a few Haymitch had even gone to school with, were lined up and beaten to bloody pulps in the middle of the square. Their crime, at least as it was told, had been poaching.

Haymitch knew for a fact that none of the men were poachers. Each and every one of them was far too timid, not daring enough to break such a strict rule. They were chosen at random, as far as anyone could tell, and sentenced ruthlessly for no other reason than spite.

Whelms, just as Undersee had told Haymitch and Matilda ages ago, was being replaced. He wasn't about to bow out without leaving District Twelve with one final show.

Though he hadn't seen the bloody spectacle, Haymitch had managed to avoid most public punishments since becoming a Victor, Matilda had seen the entire thing.

She'd seen whippings before, the stocks were used almost daily, and executions were not unheard of, but something about the large scale of the punishment has her shaken. It's the only thing he can work out that could have caused the shift in her energy.

Much as he doesn't want to ask her about it, Haymitch knows he needs to.

"Still thinking about the, uh, whippings?"

He feels her stiffen a little, then relax into him with a sigh. "A little."

Cutting his eyes down, he sees she's picking at the hem of her skirt, toying with a loose thread.

"One of them went to school with us," she finally says, pulling the thread from her skirt. It snaps.

When she hesitates, Haymitch gives her a squeeze, encourages her to continue.

Matilda presses more tightly to his side, nuzzles under his arm.

"I can't imagine how scared Valencia must've felt when they started taking them to her, for her to stitch them up. It could've been her husband. He poaches, you know?"

He didn't, but then again he didn't know the man. Haymitch isn't even sure he knows what Matilda's friend Valencia looks like. He knows she was the apothecary's daughter, still is he supposes, even if they don't acknowledge her, and that she's become known as one of the best healers in the Seam since arriving there, but to him she's just one more slowly fading blonde.

Matilda's voice is so soft he almost doesn't hear it when she speaks again.

"What would they do to us?" She pulls back and peers up at him through her lashes. "If they found out?"

Haymitch takes a deep breath, rubs his hand up and down her arm.

He isn't sure what they would do to Matilda, but he's certain she would be the one to pay for their relationship. Torturing Haymitch by breaking her would be their amusement.

"Let's not find out," he tells her gruffly, pressing a kiss to her hair.

#######

She has him meet her out at the cemetery for her mother's birthday.

Matilda has a weird obsession with celebrating birthdays. During the spring she'd dragged Haymitch out to Maysilee's stone to celebrate her and Matilda's birthday. There'd been a cupcake for each of them, a handmade card for Maysilee, and a small bouquet of daisies, gently placed on the cold stone.

It's overcast, there are dark clouds hanging low overhead, drizzling off and on all morning before Matilda finally makes her way through the stones, up to where Haymitch waits for her under the protective cover of an ancient tree.

"Took you long enough," he grumbles. He isn't really upset, but he's soggy and irritable. Until she flashes him a quick smile and pops on her toes to press a quick kiss to his lips.

"I-there was something I needed to do," she tells him evasively.

They make their way to her mother's stone, in a far corner of the cemetery, and stop, sharing the protection of Matilda's new umbrella.

For several minutes they stand there, until Haymitch starts to wonder where she's left her bag of goodies, when Matilda takes his hand and squeezes it, holds it in her cool damp palm.

"I need to tell you something," she finally says, looking up at him then back to the stone.

The drizzle continues and a boom of thunder rolls across the distance.

"I went to the doctor," she begins again. "He told me why I've been so tired."

Haymitch doesn't like her tone, it's too even, too forcedly calm.

He's bracing himself for something horrible; she's dying or has some strange condition that will take her from him, something worse than death.

"I'm pregnant."

_Well I wasn't far off the mark._

Words fail Haymitch as he stares down at Matilda, trying to make her words into something logical.

She_ can't_ be pregnant. He's been more careful with her than any girl in his life. It's an impossibility. The doctor got it wrong. She's joking with him.

There's no smile on her face, no laugh at her joke. She's serious.

Before he can stop it, his first thought rolls off his tongue. "We have to get rid of it."

It's the only solution. A baby isn't something they can hide. A baby will be physical proof of their secret. A baby will be the death of Matilda.

"But-"

He cuts her off, repeats himself, "We have to get rid of it."

Undersee's words of caution, warning Haymitch of what happens to unwed mothers, fill his head and he shakes it to fight them off.

His mind starts racing, running through all the midwives in the Seam. Surely one of them knows what to do, how to fix his mistake, how to save Matilda. Girls don't go missing from Twelve enough for there not to be. There has to be at least one woman that knows how to fix this.

There has to be.

"Haymitch, no," she shakes her head. It isn't until she begins trying to pry her wrist from his hand that he even realizes he's squeezing it.

Horrified, he lets her go.

She tumbles, falls to her bottom next to her mother's stone. Tears are filling her eyes, though whether from being hurt by his grip or his words, he doesn't know.

Wide blue eyes, clearer than he's ever seen, stare up at him. She's shaking, trembling, and much as he tries to drop down and comfort her, Haymitch can't seem to move.

"I don't want to get rid of it," she says softly, crossing her arms over her stomach protectively. "It's our baby, Haymitch."

"Matilda," he finally manages to rasp out. "Matilda, listen. You can't. _We _can't."

They'll take it. Those bastards will take it and turn it into one of them. They'll destroy Matilda. He has to make her see that.

"You said it yourself, they aren't paying much attention to you. We've been okay so far," she begins trying to reason with him.

"What do you think will happen to a girl like you, pregnant and alone, Matilda?" He snaps.

Her eyes widen at the harshness of his tone and she shrinks back.

"Alone?" She whispers, as though the thought that he would abandon her hadn't even crossed her mind.

Almost instantly Haymitch regrets what he's said, but he has to be hard with her, make her see the reality of the situation. This isn't one of her books; there is no happy ending for them. No matter how they feel, how brave they try to be, their life together will only ever be a tragedy.

"Ask your friend Danny-boy, he'll tell you. They'll ship you off, make you give it up."

She shakes her head, begins chewing her lip, "No, we can get married. I won't be alone."

"I can't marry you Matilda," he tells her through gritted teeth. "I'm a marked man."

And now he's marked her. They'll kill her and the baby.

The temperature drops a few degrees, the drizzle picks up, starts into a cold shower that slowly soaks both of them. Tears and rain mingle down Matilda's face as she finally gets to her feet, brushes her cheeks with the back of her hand.

"We have to get rid of it," Haymitch tells her again.

When she looks up at him her eyes are dark, an animal ready to fight for its life.

"No."

She runs past him, leaving her umbrella at Haymitch's feet.

#######

Haymitch isn't sure how long he stands at Matilda's mother's grave, letting the rain soak him clear to the bone. Several hours, he suspects, judging by the drop in the sun and the chill of the evening. Maybe it's just the weather settling in.

He stumbles back to his house, drinks himself into a heavy sleep, hoping to wake to a better reality. One where Matilda isn't pregnant.

Sleep is anything but a reprieve. It's full of screams, his mother's, Graeme's, Laurel's, but mostly Matilda's. Some unknown force is torturing her, ripping her to bits and there isn't anything Haymitch can do to save her. A baby, never seen, cries and is never comforted. His baby. Matilda's baby.

When his eyes open, in the dim gray light of another rainy day, with the patter of lazy rain tapping on his windows and roof, he knows his nightmare hadn't been in his head. It's a very real possibility.

His body is leaden, still in his rain, and now sweat, soaked clothes. He pulls himself to his feet, presses his palms to his eyes. He's wallowed in his misery long enough. Much as he'd love to lay down and drink himself to death, Matilda is still alive. There's still a chance to save her.

Something taps on his door, a soft rapping that he almost misses.

At first he thinks it's hail, but hail doesn't knock on the door. Squinting at the barely illuminated door, Haymitch makes out a figure.

His heart leaps momentarily, thinking it must be Matilda coming to tell him yesterday was nothing but a bad dream. Then he realizes it's at his front door. She never uses his front door.

Pulling his knife from his belt, Haymitch quietly walks to the door.

He flings it open and juts his hand out, ready to fight off whoever the Capitol has sent out.

Instead of finding one of Brutus' squad, a mindless killing machine, he finds Daniel Undersee.

He's in his long coat, the bottom is soaked. His boots, normally clean enough to eat off of, are caked in mud. In his hand is an umbrella and a newspaper. It's obvious he'd walked up to the Village from Town, but the real question is why.

"Come to earn your stripes, Danny-boy?" Haymitch asks. It would be his luck, to finally be finished off by some government stooge.

Undersee gives him a pained smile. "Not in the way you might think, Mr. Abernathy."

They stand there for a moment or two, in uncomfortable silence, before Undersee finally coughs.

"Matilda came to see me," he finally says, keeping his eyes on Haymitch. Probably waiting for a reaction.

Haymitch curses himself. He'd told Matilda to go to Undersee, and she apparently had. If something had happened to her…

Before Undersee can react, Haymitch grabs him by the collar and hauls him through the doorframe, has him pressed to the wall.

"If you hurt her," he hisses as he holds the blade to Undersee's clean shaven throat.

"Mr. Abernathy," Undersee struggles to breath.

Then, in less than a blink, he's thrown a punch square at Haymitch's jaw. It takes even less time for him to pin Haymitch down with his knees painfully in his back.

"I wouldn't hurt Matilda. She's my friend," he tells Haymitch breathlessly. "_You,_ on the other hand, have done her a great harm."

Much as Haymitch struggles, grunts and groans, tries to free himself, Undersee has him too securely trapped. All he can do is twist his head to the side and glare up at him with one eye.

"I'm going to fix it."

"How?" Undersee asks, tilting his head. He sounds annoyingly like a school teacher. "By 'getting rid of it'?"

That kills the struggle.

"You really have a way with women, you know that?" Undersee mutters. He gives Haymitch a narrow look. "I'll let you up, but if you attack me again I'll do more than lay you out, understand?"

Reluctantly, Haymitch nods, grunts his agreement.

Undersee gets up, offers Haymitch a hand, which he ignores and pushes himself to his feet.

"Nice right hook," he tells him, rubbing his jaw.

"It was a straight," Undersee corrects him as he drops onto the couch. "But we have more important things to discuss than your lack of boxing knowledge."

Irritation thrumming through his veins, Haymitch flops onto the opposite end of the couch and settles Undersee in a cold glare. "Get to it Danny-boy, I don't have all day."

"You should if you value Matilda's life half as much as I think you do," Undersee says with a sigh, running a hand over his face. His eyes, a bit red rimmed, finally come to a focus on Haymitch's fireplace. "She's in trouble Mr. Abernathy. You and I both know that."

"She came to me yesterday, an absolute mess. Told me everything." He lets his eyes flicker for a second to Haymitch before refocusing on the empty fireplace. "I told her about Ten. About the children's homes and the surgeries. I made sure she understood the obstacles in her future."

Haymitch can't stop himself from asking, a little too hopefully, "And?"

Undersee shakes his head. "She didn't care."

"We have to make her," Haymitch tell him. "You can help me. You care what happens. Help me convince her."

He has to.

For an eternity Undersee just stares before finally sighing. "Did I ever tell you about my son?"

This isn't the time for reminiscing, and Haymitch is about to tell him just that, when he smiles.

"He was stillborn. Massive malformations. They called it a neural tube defect, very rare." He takes a deep breath. "Elenor and I only ever wanted to be parents, but our District determined that our genes weren't fit to be carried on. They didn't just 'fix' Elenor, it could've just as easily been me that caused the baby to be born that way, understand?"

Haymitch doesn't, not at first. He just stares at Undersee, blinks stupidly at him for several seconds before what he's said sinks in.

"Oh." At least District Ten isn't just applying their cruel rules on women only.

Undersee nods, sighs again. "Matilda can't do this alone. Not in Twelve and most definitely not in Ten. I can help her."

Again, it takes Haymitch a few seconds to catch up with what Undersee is saying. He almost laughs. Does Undersee really think Matilda will marry him?

"'Tilda's a romantic," he says as he shakes his head. "She won't get hitched for anything less than a fairy tale."

Undersee arches one of his eyebrows. "And yet she's pregnant with your child. Not the act of a silly, starry-eyed romantic."

That shuts Haymitch up. He shoots Undersee a dark look. "And what makes you think she'll marry you?"

"She's a mother now," Undersee says simply. "Parents will do anything for their children. Even forfeit their own happiness."

Haymitch doesn't doubt that. His own mother had gone through hell more times than he cares to remember over him.

"She wants you, though," Undersee finally adds. "She loves you."

"I know," Haymitch groans, running his hands through his hair and turning his now faltering glare to the ground. "I know she does, and it's going to be the death of her."

He looks up at Undersee, begging him to understand how much this is killing him.

They hold each other's look and pass an understanding between them, before Haymitch drops his eyes to the ground again. He rubs his hand over his face and it comes away wet.

Damn that.

#######

They trudge through the slow rain, an achingly slow trickle from the gray clouds, to the barracks where the government officials are housed.

Undersee's house is plain, freshly painted and with a tiny flowerbed beside the narrow front porch. The shutters are a little faded, but in otherwise good condition.

He leads Haymitch up the short steps, their feet echoing hollowly on the unvarnished wood.

The door flies open and a gray haired woman with too large a nose and sharp features smiles at Undersee.

"Good to see you back so quick, boss," she says in a chipper tone.

Her smile fades immediately when she sees Haymitch.

"Boots off," she snaps coolly at him before vanishing back into the house.

"Matilda still in the guestroom, Mrs. Oberst?" Undersee asks the empty entryway.

"Yes, sir," the hateful woman's voice tells him from somewhere in the back, probably the kitchen. "Taking a nap."

Undersee calls out a thank-you before leading Haymitch through the plainly decorated house, down a short hallway to a closed door.

"She's inside," he tells Haymitch. "The rest is up to you."

The rest is up to him. Either he signs Matilda's death certificate by telling her he'll marry her, tell her to rip out his heart but save her life by marrying Undersee, or send her to an uncertain future in the West, which would also likely get her killed.

He's never had less appealing choices in his life, and he's survived a Quarter Quell.

Quietly, he opens the door.

Matilda is on the other side of the room, curled into a ball on the bed and facing the window. Lazy rivulets of water are trailing down the glass, distorting the view.

The floor doesn't even squeak as he softly treads across it. He stands by the bed, watches the gentle rise and fall of her body as she sleeps, knowing it may be the last time he gets to see her like this.

Hesitantly, Haymitch reaches out and brushes some of the loose, wild strands of hair from Matilda's face.

At first she doesn't stir, just continues to sleep on. Then her eyelashes flutter, crack open and flicker around for the source of what had woken her.

When her eyes cut over, catch Haymitch in the farthest corner of her vision, she rolls over, gives him a small, sad smile.

"Hello, Haymitch."

Against his own volition, his hand reaches out, traces a line down her cheek, memorizing the feel of her skin against his. He deserves a few last, good memories doesn't he?

She reaches up, catches his hand, trapping it against her cheek before turning her face and pressing a kiss to his palm. After a few seconds she sits up, stares up at him through her eyelashes and tangled hair.

"Daniel told me about the unwed mothers' home," she finally says.

Haymitch runs his hand over his face and sighs.

"He told me you were right, that you can't marry me," she adds. Her eyes, watery blue, drop down to her hands in her lap. "You can't, but he can."

The only noise that saves them from dead silence is the gentle patter of the rain on the roof and window. Haymitch tries to keep his eyes off Matilda, focusing on the sloppy looking mess outside. If he looks at her he might lose his will, and that will cost Matilda her life.

"Please tell me not to," she finally whispers. "Please, Haymitch, tell me not to marry him."

She wants him to tell her he's going to be brave, throw caution to the wind and take her down to the Justice Hall and marry her, that everything is going to be okay.

But he can't.

"I'm sorry, 'Tilda."

Her chin starts quivering. Haymitch can see fresh tears starting to trail down her cheeks, like the rain down the window.

"Then leave," she says, so quietly he almost doesn't hear it. "Leave if y-you aren't g-going t-to help."

She stands and starts swatting the tears off her face, only to have them replaced by a dozen more. Shaking, her hands reach up, pull Maysilee's pin, ever present on her dresses, off. In a fit of fury, she flings it at him. It bounces off his chest before it falls to the floor harmlessly and she begins crying harder.

"There," she snaps, uncharacteristically sharp. "T-take it. You deserve it. You d-deserve your life if y-you won't b-be b-b-brave."

Before she can storm out she trips over her bare feet and Haymitch catches her, pulls her to his chest and holds her there.

For a few seconds she struggles, tries to push him away, but he won't let her go.

When she finally stills, chilly little fingers gripping into the front of his shirt and tears soaking through the material, Haymitch buries his face in her hair. He inhales the scent of candy and sugar that permeates her. He soaks in her warmth, toys with the loose furls of her soft hair.

"I love you, Matilda," he finally tells her. "But I can't be brave about this."

He has to be smart. It's the only way to keep her alive.

"Being brave will only get you killed. I can't do that, understand?"

She doesn't move, just continues to cling to him, her hot breath ghosting through the fabric of his shirt. He almost doesn't think she heard him.

Just as he's about to repeat himself, her hands start to crawl around his middle and her arms wrap around him. He feels her nod.

Haymitch closes his eyes and imagines the life they could've had.

Coming home from the mines. Bringing her flowers. Helping her set the table. Playing with the kid…

For a fleeting moment he wonders if it'll be a boy or a girl, what she'll name it, if it'll have her coloring or his. For its sake, he hopes hers. He presses her closer to him, pretending he can feel whatever tiny life is inside her moving even though that's ridiculous. If he concentrates hard enough though, he can pretend.

They stay like that for too long, but not long enough for Haymitch. He doesn't know how long it'll be before he gets to see her again, if he ever will. These are his last few moments with her, as far as he's concerned, and he wants them to stretch into the uncertain eternity.


	8. Chapter 8

Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine

**Light Yet To Be Found, pt 8**

AN: Thanks to FortuneFaded2012 for all her help.

#######

Haymitch doesn't see her again for several weeks after he leaves Undersee's house.

He stays in his house, quickly and violently reversing all of Matilda's work. It doesn't matter. She won't see it.

Maysilee's pin makes it home with him. He locks it away with the pictures of his mother and brother, which he took down the moment he got home. The fewer reminders of the life he'd had, of the one he could've had, the better.

His trips to the Hob get both shorter and longer, taking the long way around the Town to reach it but no longer visiting the sweet shop.

On accident, he catches a glimpse of Matilda coming out of the bakery. She's already growing, wispy as she is it's no surprise, but it is.

Because he can't stop himself, he stares at her, watches her cheerfully leave the store with a brown sack of some of Mellark's best. When she stops to talk to Eugenia, who looks to be pregnant as well, her delicate little hands settle on the small swell of her stomach. Haymitch's insides roll as he wonders if she can feel the baby moving yet. He's certain she can.

After that he redoubles his efforts to avoid seeing her.

Snow comes in, coats the ground like Herschel's confectioner's sugar when a soft knock comes on his door. The first visitor he's had since Matilda's last visit.

Warily, Haymitch pulls out his knife, holds it at the ready when he flings the back door open.

Once again, he's dumbfounded by what he finds.

"Hello, Haymitch," Wiress smiles tightly, brushing giant snowflakes off her shoulders and out of her hair.

While she doesn't look like a harbinger of doom, Haymitch knows better. Good news never follows Wiress, and he knows why she's come to darken his doorstep. His stomach turns and bile rises in his throat.

She looks up at him with her sharp eyes. "May I come in?"

"Could I stop you?" He grumbles, knowing the answer.

"No," she answers shortly as she steps past him into the kitchen.

It's a mess. Bottles and garbage everywhere. Matilda would be horrified at the state Haymitch had managed to get it to in such a short amount of time. Normally it wasn't this bad, but heart ache had hindered his ability to pick up after himself.

"Lovely place you have here," she says as she eyes his collection of fruit rinds and liquor bottles disdainfully.

"It's home," he mutters as he brushes past her, into the living room.

She follows him, pulling her gloves off and stuffing them into her pockets.

"Got yourself into some trouble," she starts. "I warned you."

"I know." He also knows he should be kinder to her. She holds his life, Matilda's, in her hands. Wiress' mind, though, is already made up, nothing he says or does, how sweetly he does it, will change her purpose.

Wiress' mouth turns down severely. "I'm not here to rub it in."

"Could've fooled me," Haymitch snaps as he snatches up another bottle and empties the contents down his throat, flopping onto the couch and hoping Wiress vanishes if he drinks enough.

The couch dips as she drops onto the cushion beside him.

Haymitch looks at her. Her eyes are dark, almost tearful, and the faint lines at the edges are more pronounced than he remembers. The years and the work are catching up with her.

"I've been working on fixing this mess you've gotten yourself and that poor girl into," Wiress tells him. The sharpness is back to her features, as she glares at him.

Haymitch narrows his drunken glare at her. "Bit late on that, aren't you? Already taken care of it."

"Yes, I've heard," Wiress says with a roll of her eyes. "Truly brilliant."

"Better than anything you could've planned," he mumbles to himself.

"Highly unlikely," she says with a sigh.

That's probably, unfortunately, true. Haymitch squints at her, takes a long drink from his bottle, preparing himself for whatever horrible tidings she's brought.

"Well," he finally huffs, "let's hear it."

Wiress pulls her pen out from her purse and clicks it, sighs. "Poor thing doesn't have much time left on it. They'll be changing the codes soon." She gives him a dim smile. "It'll still be able to detect them though."

"Detect what?" Haymitch asks, rubbing his hands over his face. He hates her talking in circles.

"Bugs," Wiress says with a wave of her hand. "That isn't important though, not really. I'm the only one on your case at the moment."

So they had forgotten about him. Of course.

She pulls out some papers, official looking documents and a few pictures. Haymitch squints at the photos, almost recognizes them when Wiress thrusts them at him.

He takes them from her, holds them loosely in his hands as he begins flipping through them.

There are a few he recognizes, of Matilda and himself in the garden, on the porch, in the kitchen, at her father's shop. Some are of Undersee, chatting with Matilda, sitting with Haymitch, working in his office. Then there are ones he doesn't know. A pair of dusty brunette girls with bright smiles and faded dresses, another of Undersee with a woman, then finally a baby-malformed and clearly dead-being held by the two, both obviously in tears.

"What is all this?"

"The culmination of my efforts," Wiress says simply. Her long finger jabs at each picture as she explains.

She holds the papers out to him and Haymitch hesitantly takes them.

They're falsified documents. Papers documenting dates and procedures.

"Your friend Undersee is clever, but he only has so much reach," she begins, pulling a paper or two out. "These are documents verifying that he was never sterilized in Ten. Thankfully their system of recording is completely paper based, the Capitol isn't terribly concerned with what they're doing as long as it keeps them in meat."

She shuffles the pile, pulls a page to the top with numbers on it.

"I've had to do some real work to switch your blood work and his. Just in case they check it against the child's, but unless there's some question of paternity brought up, it shouldn't be an issue." Her attention shifts to another page. "I've transposed all of your brother's statistics, blood type and the like, to Mr. Undersee's sisters. They were also dark headed, so if we get unlucky and the child looks like you, at least there will be an explanation."

Haymitch takes the papers from her, stares at them without really seeing them.

"I hadn't thought of all that."

"Of course you didn't," Wiress sighs again. "You're too close to the problem. It's why we don't do scout work for our own Districts. You need a little distance to see things properly."

He nods at that.

For several minutes they sit quietly on his broken down couch, staring at the papers that will, hopefully, ensure that the child growing in Matilda will never be suspected to have any father but Daniel Undersee.

Wiress reaches out, settles one of her thin hands on Haymitch's shoulder and gives it a pat.

"I'm sorry it has to be like this, you know?"

He does. She's sorry, but she'd warned him. She's sorry, but this is what she has to do. It's either this or possibly be part of another death. This time a young woman and a baby.

Wiress is playing her part in the Game. Distasteful as she finds it.

"I know," Haymitch finally says. He rubs his eyes. They sting and he doesn't quite know why. "Are you going to tell Danny?"

Her lips twitch up. "I've already done it. He was very gracious."

When Haymitch simply nods, her hand squeezes his shoulder, a small bit of consolation, and she stands.

She straightens her dress out, dusts it off, and then holds something out to him, a small, thin object. Her pen.

"Like I said, it'll only be good to detect bugs here soon." She points to a small light on it as she clicks the top, beginning her explanation. "Three click, wait for the red and green to stop flickering. If it's green, no bugs. Red, bugs present. Two clicks will block them, but like I said, that won't work much longer. The green light will turn yellow for a minute while it's blocking them, then go green again. Once it stops turning yellow they've changed the blocking codes and it's only good for detecting."

She takes his hand and presses the pen to it, giving him a tight smile. Haymitch takes it and stares down at it.

"What do you want me to do with it?"

Wiress chuckles. "That's up to you."

#######

The next few months crawl by.

Haymitch finally gets a pattern down to avoid accidently seeing Matilda, though Undersee is another story.

"She's doing very well. Decorating the nursery," he tells Haymitch quietly as they both stand in line to get milk. He chuckles. "Wanting to make ice cream."

Stomach turning, Haymitch is only getting milk to make ice cream himself, he nods.

"The doctor says the baby is growing right on schedule," he adds as he picks up the bottle of milk.

Though Haymitch knows Undersee is only trying to comfort him, letting him know that Matilda and her baby are alive and well, it still stings. He never thought he'd want to be dealing with pregnancy cravings and nesting, but listening to Undersee tell him about Matilda, he can't imagine anything he'd like more.

"That hag of yours treating her well?" Haymitch asks, against his better judgment.

He's run into the old lady, Oberst, a few times, receiving what he can only call a chilly reception from her each time. It boils his blood to think that she's treating Matilda like dirt.

"Mrs. Oberst?" Undersee frowns. "She adores Matilda. Been doting on her since she moved in."

As much as a relief as that is, Haymitch still doesn't like her.

#######

Haymitch thinks he accidently sees Matilda one day when he's stumbling home, taking a detour by his old home in the Seam, now a pile of charred wood and soot. It's damp, the warm rain that had fallen during the afternoon and cleaned the air had left small puddles all around the crumbling structure.

Out the corner of his eye he catches a glimpse of blonde hair and pale skin, a rounded belly on a slight frame, and his heart drops to his feet.

His first thought is that Matilda somehow knew he'd be passing by, which is ridiculous, he hasn't spoken to her in months and he's never mentioned wanting to visit the ruins of his family's home. She would have no reason to think he'd ever want to, yet he can't think of any other reason for her being in the Seam.

Feet instantly steadying themselves, he quickly goes in the direction the blonde vanished.

When he takes the corner, nearly running over a group of kids playing kick ball, his heart leaps back into his chest.

The blonde has stopped, is smiling and laughing with another woman holding a toddler, but she isn't Matilda.

Despite her pregnant belly, which is every bit as big as Matilda's would be, and her Merchant looks, she isn't Matilda.

She's taller, thinner, her hair is pulled back, just like Matilda's, but it isn't loose and wispy. There's no hazy gleam in her smiling blue eyes.

Instantly, as he's watching her rub a hand over her stomach, full of baby, he knows she's Matilda's old friend, the apothecary's daughter that ran off with a miner. Apparently she finally got herself pregnant.

Haymitch watches her for a minute, his mind taunting him again with images of a life he will never have.

Matilda cleaning a little shack in the Seam. Coming home to their child, maybe children, running out the front door to greet him. Kissing scraped knees. Going to bed every night and waking each morning with Matilda nuzzled into him.

It's a beautiful dream, but an impossibility.

He wonders if Matilda's friend and her husband, Valencia and her miner husband, know how lucky they are to simply be regular people. To not be watched by the Capitol and have their lives and choices dictated by faceless, nameless monsters a thousand miles away.

He wonders if they know how lucky they are to have the choice to be together and having their baby.

It's doubtful, and Haymitch hates himself for the thought.

Gathering his bearings, Haymitch tears his eyes away from the mother to be, the life he'll never have because he's a Victor, and turns on his heels.

He has a lot of drinking to do.

#######

The sun has been down for several hours, deeming the streets safe by Haymitch's estimation. Matilda will be safely tucked away in Undersee's government house, making the District Haymitch's to roam.

At least that's what he thought.

Unsteadily, he makes his way down the back alley, hoping maybe Herschel will still be up, cleaning his candy making tools, and he might take pity on Haymitch and give him a chunk of fudge. He's been craving it, though he's certain it's less the treat and more the girl that always gave it to him he's missing.

As he makes his way up the alley, his heart speeds up at the sight of a light on at the back door of the sweet shop.

Straightening himself out, Haymitch steadies his steps and makes his way to the door.

He can smell candy, the scent that always clung to Matilda. There are voices from inside, distorted and muffled by the clanking ofbowls and tools, running water and the hum of one of the big machines. Despite all that, Haymitch knows both voices, and one isn't who he expected to be there.

Matilda.

Unable to move, not to knock or carry himself away, Haymitch stays rooted in the spot. It's been too long since he's heard her soft voice and it lulls him into a stupor.

It isn't until he hears light footsteps coming towards the door, dragging something, that he turns to leave, hoping he can get to the shadows before he's caught.

He's one footstep from safety, from sparing himself from his own mistakes, when he hears his name.

"Haymitch?"

It's been so long since he's heard her say his name it sounds foreign to him. A song he's known forever but hasn't had sung to him in a lifetime.

Despite his mind telling him to ignore her and keep walking, he can't. Against his better judgment he turns.

She's as beautiful as ever, pale and wispy in the dull lamplight. There's a bag in her hand, probably the garbage from the day she's been helping her dad with. Her head tilts and her nose scrunches up, studying him and deciding if he's really there or just a figment of her imagination.

The bag drops and her hands jump to her stomach, no longer a small bump, but a large swell. She's getting uncomfortably close to her due date.

They stay like that for a few seconds before Matilda takes a few hesitant steps and is in front of him.

Haymitch knows he should leave, having her so close if overwhelmingly tempting and he's spent on sacrifice at the moment, but his feet are lead and some stupid part of his brain keeps telling him a few seconds won't hurt.

A little smile, a bit sad, forms on her lips. "How have you been, Haymitch?"

Words won't come; they just turn to a grunt in his throat.

He wants to ask how _she's_ been, but he can't. Either she's been terrible, and that will make him feel like a failure, or she'll have been great, just fine without him, and that will make him feel even worse.

Instead he lets his eyes drop down to her stomach, which is a bad decision.

The baby is almost fully grown, probably has a head full of hair by now. Haymitch idly wonders if it'll be dark like his. They can say it's from Undersee's side of the family. He supposes he has Wiress to thank for all her hard work if that happens.

As he's about to turn and run, save himself from more thinking, Matilda makes a small noise.

"You okay?" Haymitch asks instantly, reaching out to her but stopping himself just short of touching her.

She doesn't seem hurt, but her hands tighten on her stomach. Her small smile widens. "I'm fine. The baby kicked."

Haymitch's stomach drops. Hearing her talk about it, her baby kicking, makes it that much more real, gives it some kind of personality, and he hates that.

His eyes settle on her hands, pressing in where presumably the baby had kicked.

Before he knows what she's doing, Matilda has reached out with her cool little fingers and grabbed his hand. She presses it to her stomach.

Nothing seems to happen for a few minutes, and just as Haymitch is about to take his hand back, he feels something push back.

It's a tiny hand or foot, the baby is probably stretching out, getting itself comfortable in its warm little womb.

"My dad says Maysilee and I used to fight in our mother," Matilda tells him as he keeps his hand pressed to the life still growing inside her.

"There's only one, right?" Haymitch asks, suddenly terrified of losing Matilda the same way her dad had lost her mother.

She lets out a breathy little laugh. "Just the one."

Sighing, Haymitch lets his eyes drop back down to his hand. This is the closest he'll probably ever get to this baby. He tries to memorize the feel of the movement, the texture of Matilda's dress under his hand.

When he hears Herschel call for her from inside, Haymitch pulls his hand back, as if it had been burned, and looks away.

"See you around, 'Tilda," he tells her quickly as he turns on his heels.

He doesn't look back to see if she's heard him. He can't.

#######

It's the second of June when Haymitch stumbles his way to the Hob. His liquor stock has decreased faster than usual as the due date to Matilda's baby gets closer.

He's just filled a large sack full of Ripper's white liquor and is ready to head home and drink himself into a coma when he catches sight of the paper.

It's become a bad habit of his, checking the births. The baby isn't due for almost two more weeks, but babies come when they feel like it, as his mother had always said, so it could arrive any day now.

Ignoring the voice in his head telling him to leave it, Haymitch snatches up the discarded paper and quickly sneaks out the back.

Bottle clinking as he heaves the sack over his shoulder, Haymitch shifts his load and sets the paper down on the remnants of a stump. He flips through it until he finds the birth announcements and scans through the names.

At the bottom, they'd probably only just made the cut off to put it in the paper, was the announcement: D. and M. Undersee, girl.

_Girl._

His heart speeds up for some reason. Matilda has a daughter. Haymitch has a-

No. Daniel Undersee has a daughter. Haymitch doesn't have anyone.

Leaving the rest of the paper to blow off in the wind, Haymitch takes the page and stuffs it in his pocket before stomping off.

#######

He drinks, but not enough. His mind still taunts him with visions of a life he could've had. Matilda rocking a baby, singing little lullabies to a swaddled bundle in her arms. A little girl, sometimes dark headed as his mother and other times blonde like Matilda, smiles up at him and chatters aimlessly. It reminds him of Graeme when he was small and adored Haymitch to the stars and back.

When he wakes though, there's no little girl babbling at him, no Matilda in a rocking chair.

There's only Haymitch and his misery.

It's a terrible idea, he knows it the moment it forms in his head, but he can't shake it. He has to see them.

It's warm; the sun is dying, painting the sky in oranges and pinks, as he makes his way to the backside of the government housing. The residents have already turned on the porch lights, dotting the rows with little yellow orbs, lighting Haymitch's way.

Undersee's house is at the end of the row, has a slightly larger yard than the rest. Someone, probably Matilda, has a little pot set out on the bottommost step of the porch with a tiny tomato plant growing in it. Haymitch stares at it for a few minutes, building up his courage, before stepping past it and up the steps.

He knocks, two sharp raps on the wood of the door, then waits.

His heart leaps into his chest when the door opens.

Undersee has a towel over his shoulder, smeared with something creamy, and he blinks at Haymitch, clearly confused by his evening guest.

"Good evening, Mr. Abernathy," he finally says.

All the words in Haymitch's vocabulary vanish; evaporate into the thick air around him. His mouth gapes and he tries to speak, but nothing comes out.

Undersee's lips tug up and he backs from the door, gently gestures for Haymitch to come in with a wave of his hand.

Before he can think on it too hard, his mind is still a little foggy from the liquor, Haymitch crosses the threshold and steps into the kitchen.

"You can call me Haymitch, Danny boy," he finally manages to mutter.

After all he's done for him, it's the least Haymitch can have him do, tell him to refer to him as an equal and not some distant acquaintance.

"Haymitch," Undersee says, as though testing out the name. He smiles. "All right."

They stand in the kitchen, which smells of fried tomatoes, and stare at each other for several minutes before something finally takes their attention off one another.

It's not quite a cry, just a squeaky sort of noise coming from what Haymitch remembers is the living room.

Undersee excuses himself, rushes out of the kitchen and towards the source of the noise. Alone in the kitchen, Haymitch stuffs his hands in his pockets and mulls over why exactly he came. His hand wraps around something cool and narrow in his pocket and pulls it out. Wiress' pen.

He'd tucked it away in his pant pocket and forgotten about it after her visit.

As he's considering his gift Undersee comes back in, now carrying a small bundle. Haymitch stuffs the pen back in his pocket.

It isn't squeaking anymore, just making soft little noises from its blankets. Its face is just out of view, obscured by the blankets, but tiny hands are reaching out, one holding onto Undersee's thick finger.

Despite still knowing how much more it's going to hurt, Haymitch cranes his neck to try and see it.

Undersee's eyebrows arch up. "Do you want to see her?"

He doesn't, but he _does._

Haymitch nods.

Shifting the bundle, Undersee gestures for Haymitch to come closer.

Taking a few steps, Haymitch peaks into the swaddling.

She's tiny, much smaller than he'd expected. Her eyes are closed, miniature eyelashes resting against her chubby little cheeks. Haymitch supposes there have to be some of his own features visible in her face, but all he can see is Matilda.

"She's beautiful isn't she?" Undersee asks, smiling down at her.

All Haymitch can manage is a grunt of agreement.

He reaches out, brushes one of his thick fingers against her cheek. It's impossibly soft.

"We named her Magdalene," Undersee says. "Madge, for short."

Haymitch nods, memorizing the name.

Madge. Madge and Matilda.

"It's, uh, pretty. Pretty name," he finally says.

Undersee nods, gnawing on his cheek before sighing. "Do you want me to check and see if Matilda is awake?"

Haymitch answers almost instantaneously, "Yeah."

Shifting the bundle again, Undersee gives him a small smile. "Will you hold her for me while I go check?"

His hands react before he can stop them, accepting the chance to hold Matilda's baby. His baby.

Gently, Undersee passes the baby, Madge, into Haymitch's arms. "Mind her head."

It's been years since he held a baby. He thinks the last time had probably been his neighbor's boy back when Haymitch had been about ten. Eamon, that was the brat's name. A squirmy, smelly, noisy nuisance.

Madge isn't any of those things.

She's still, only makes her soft little noises every now and then, and when Haymitch shifts her, he catches a sweet, clean smell. She's the best baby, he's certain of it.

He's so consumed with studying each and every tiny eyelash that he doesn't even notice Undersee has left.

Backing up, Haymitch settles into one of the seats at the little kitchen table. He reaches into his pocket and finds the pen, clicks the top three times.

It takes it a few seconds, flashing between green and red before settling on green. The house is clean, so Haymitch stuffs the slowly fading pen back into his pocket and lets out a long breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

His eyes settle on the bundle in his arms again. A pair of tiny blue eyes stare up at him. "Hi, Madge."

She doesn't cry, even though his voice is rough and his breath on her must be harsh. Her tiny nose wrinkles a bit, but beyond that she seems content to watch him, waiting for him to do something, though he isn't sure what.

"I'm, uh, I'm your…"

He wants to say 'dad', but the name dies on his tongue. He isn't her dad. Daniel Undersee is.

Haymitch feels his eyes start to sting, burn for some reason, and he blinks them hard to clear his vision. This could be the only time he gets to hold his dau-_Madge,_and he doesn't want poor vision ruining his memory. Then something wet starts rolling down his cheeks.

Damn that.

It's one more injustice of his life, he thinks, that he won the Hunger Games, a Quarter Quell no less, and he's still not getting his prize.

He's lost his mother, brother, and Laurel, and now he's had to give up Matilda and Madge.

His baby. His daughter. His Madge.

"I'm your dad, sweetheart," he finally tells her.

It won't matter to her. She's just a baby and he knows this isn't some life changing statement for her. She's never going to know him as anything but Haymitch Abernathy, drunk Victor, and that's for the best. For a minute though, he can have his moment. He's giving her up for her own safety, and isn't that what a good dad would do?

He hopes so.

Madge's bright eyes blink at him as though in some way she might understand.

"I would-I would've married your mother. I love her. Things are…complicated." He swallows down a lump. "I wish they weren't, but they are. That doesn't mean I don't…"

He rubs his free hand over his face to clear his vision. It's stupid. He's spent the past few months distancing himself from the creature sharing Matilda's body, making it wholly something foreign, Matilda's baby, not his.

Now though, in Undersee's smelly kitchen, all that work is collapsing at his feet.

"I'm doing the best I can for you, okay?" He chokes out.

She makes a gurgling noise, which he takes to mean she understands, so he smiles down at her.

"I love you, kiddo."

#######

In the end, Matilda had been asleep.

"The delivery was very rough on her," Undersee had explained. "The doctor said she lost more blood than most. Probably be anemic for a while."

Haymitch had just nodded, kept his eyes settled on Madge. Much as he'd wanted to see Matilda, at least he'd gotten to see the baby. He would come by another evening.

After all, he and Danny boy were friends. He could stop by and see his friend couldn't he?

Carefully, he'd passed Madge back to Danny, resisting the urge to press a quick kiss to her tiny head as he did.

As he walked home with surprising steadiness, he smiled to himself.

"_What piece in the Game do you want to be?"_

When Wiress had asked him that, and he'd finally responded, it had been because he'd wanted revenge.

_"I want to help bring them down," he told her. "And the sooner the better."_

He understands now why she'd always told him to be patient, kept him on the outside of things. It wasn't just because of his hostility.

Wiress had taken his reason to fight, his reason to care, and replaced it with emptiness and anger.

A light is back in his life, even if he can only use it to guide his way from a distance. It's only a dull flame, barely growing to life, but with time it will grow. He just has to be patient.

#######

AN: And this story is done. Thanks for reading.


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